The Delilah Complex
by JillyW
Summary: Summary: A mysterious stranger arrives in Seefra, spelling trouble for the crew – and one member in particular. Complete
1. Chapter 1

Set in Season 5, somewhere after 'Pride Before The Fall' but before Trance's sun starts to come through, so spoilers for that episode amongst other.

Thanks as always to Chya for her encouragement. Self beta'd, so any and all mistakes are mine.

Disclaimer: Sadly, none of Andromeda's crew belongs to me. I've just borrowed them briefly from their owners and promise to put them back exactly (well, almost... particularly in Rhade's case!) as I found them.

No profit is being made from these stories and I don't have anything worth suing for...

**THE DELILAH COMPLEX**

**By JillyW**

**Part 1**

"Sundown at the ass-end of the universe – my favourite time of day." With a wry smile, Telemachus Rhade raised his glass in sardonic toast, draining its contents before replacing it with exaggerated care on the chipped surface in front of him. And, as if acknowledging his words, the last rays of Seefra's suns straggling through the grimy, flyblown windows gave up the battle and made way for the gathering night.

Perched on the stool next to him at the bar in the only saloon in town, Beka Valentine snorted in response. "Only because it means you got through another day without getting your fool head blown off!" She paused in consideration, then went on, "Actually, we all did, which I guess is worth celebrating some." Polishing off her own drink, she gestured to the short blond leaning on the other side of the bar. "Set 'em up, Harper."

"Another day, another dollar," contributed Seamus Harper, meeting their blank looks with, "You know – dollars? Bucks? Moolah? Credits? Money, for Pete's sake!" Seeing the way Beka was narrowing her eyes at him, he shrugged and mumbled, "Old Earth saying…" before re-filling their glasses.

"And unfortunately for us, a rather inaccurate one," Rhade commented darkly, staring broodingly down into the drink now wrapped possessively in one big hand.

"Speak for yourself," Harper smirked. "Some of us had a very profitable day, thank you very much." At the Nietzschean's scowl, he waved an arm that took in the well-populated room and said airily, "Told you not to give up your day job. That's the main problem with working for Dylan – you never know when your next payday is going to roll around. You gotta keep a few little projects on the back burner to tide you through."

"That's what you told him, huh?" Beka laughed, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, well, maybe not exactly in so many words," he admitted blithely, "but something like that is so obvious not even a big lug like Rhade could be stupid enough not to get it." His tone was bold, but he was prudent enough to take a small step back out of range.

But whatever Rhade's reaction might have been, Harper needn't have worried – salvation was at hand. From outside, somewhere in the far distance, came a series of muffled thuds that sent gentle tremors through the ground beneath them. And in the midst of them they heard a sharp crackling sound, like a vast burst of static.

Half the saloon's patrons leapt to their feet, moving to windows or door to peer out at the sky, while the remainder simply glanced up then returned to their drinks with the air of those who had seen it all before.

"Oh great, here we go again," Harper muttered, but his frown turned to a fond, though somewhat proprietary smile as he spotted a statuesque blonde woman pushing through the crowd at the entrance and heading their way.

"Looks like another one just came through," the woman said brightly as she reached them.

"Gee, Doyle, ya think?" Beka turned to meet the newcomer with a look of mock surprise.

But it was Rhade who voiced what they were all really thinking. "And you just know it's going to mean trouble."

-o-

Somewhere out in the unforgiving desert that covered most of the planet, a passing lizard clung motionless to a rock, watching silently as the sleek silver spacecraft emerged from the cloud of sand it had created by its less than elegant landfall. After a few minutes it registered a tall dark form slipping clandestinely from the ship's shadowed entry port, pausing to glance up at the night sky.

With a satisfied-seeming nod, the figure shouldered a heavy looking bag and set off purposefully towards the glow of light on the horizon that indicated habitation. A moment later, the vessel shimmered from sight again, leaving nothing but rocks and sand for the local wildlife to watch.

-o-

Captain Dylan Hunt stood on the command deck of the Andromeda Ascendant, a contented smile spreading across his face as the hologram he'd just been talking to blinked out. Getting his great warship up to sufficient power for the visual version of her core AI to function again had been a huge challenge, and it still pleased him enormously to have her back. So much so that he sometimes couldn't resist calling on her for almost no reason at all, just to see her appear – something he was strangely sure she was quite aware of.

Mind you, this time she actually had more to tell him than just responding to his lame query about progress on auto-repairs to the ship's back-up relays. A sensor glitch she couldn't explain had prevented her pinpointing the landing site of the latest entrant to the Seefra system, though analysis of its initial trajectory would seem to put it somewhere on Seefra-1.

With no evidence of anything on the surface, the logical assumption was that it hadn't actually made it that far, that it had been ultimately unable to withstand the extreme stresses exerted on it by the Route of Ages. But, he was amused to see, Andromeda had exhibited something close to what - had she been human - he would have called frustration at being unable to confirm that as fact.

"It feels good to see her, doesn't it," came a gentle voice from behind him, and he turned to see the gold-skinned Trance Gemini standing in the doorway. "Almost like old times – except that these times are anything but old. Not that they're really new either. They're just… what they are, though what that is I'm sure will become clear in due course."

"Good to see you too, Trance," Dylan responded with a bemused shake of his head. "Even if I still don't understand half of what you say most of the time."

"Well, it would be fair to say that I don't always truly understand it all myself," she said with a frown as she crossed the room towards him, "though I feel I really should."

"It'll come to you," Dylan assured her. "And when it does, you can explain it all to me. Deal?"

She smiled beatifically up at him. "Deal. So…" she continued, glancing round the bridge. "Where is everyone today?"

"Oh, Beka and Doyle are on a supply-run to Seefra-2, and I think Harper has managed to con Rhade into helping him with one of his projects again – though the heavens only know how. It always ends in tears."

A distantness seemed to dim the bright clarity of Trance's gaze momentarily, and she turned away from him to look at the globe of the planet hanging in the viewscreen ahead. Dylan's stomach lurched just a little as she said softly, "As I very much fear it will do again this time. For all of us…"

-o-o-o-


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

"You want me to what?" Stopping dead in the middle of the long, trash-strewn alley Harper had just led him into, Rhade stood with hands on leather-clad hips and stared down in disbelief at Andromeda's diminutive engineer.

Harper shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny, trying for an encouraging grin as he flashed a glance over his shoulder to a doorway some distance up ahead. A doorway that even from here they could see was metal-studded and impenetrable-looking – just like the man obviously standing guard outside it, who was starting to survey them suspiciously.

"Oh, come on Rhade. It's not like it's something you've never done before. In fact, I'd have to say you're an expert. The expert. The living epitome of the phrase 'practice makes perfect'. Oh, and…" He looked furtively around again before finishing quickly, "if you don't it'll probably put back our chances of getting out of this damn system by, ooh, let me think here… how about forever!"

Rhade's brow furrowed a little at this, but the ferocity of his glare didn't waver at all. "Listen, you little weasel, you got me out here because you said you needed me to ride shotgun on a little pickup job you were doing for Dylan…"

"Which is true – in a manner of speaking," Harper interrupted earnestly. "Though I guess that might depend on your precise definition of 'shotgun' and 'pickup'"

"Harper…" warned the Nietzschean through gritted teeth, reaching out a hand in a manner that guaranteed dire consequences. But his attention was briefly sidetracked by something at the very far end of the alley – a dark figure, face obscured under a broad-brimmed hat, but who seemed to be paying them rather too much attention for a casual passer-by. This allowed the smaller man to skip back out of reach, the movement drawing Rhade's focus back his direction. And when he glanced up again, the figure was gone.

He shook his head impatiently at the unwanted distraction, aware his diminutive companion was babbling on again, and that they were also drawing more unwelcome interest from the lughead on the door.

"…to actually sleep with her or anything – well, not unless you feel the urge, of course, but I'd quite understand if you didn't given that she's not exactly… you know." Harper's hands sketched an obviously voluptuous female form in the air between them, but before he could draw breath to continue he found his nose mere inches from a very large fist.

"Harper, if you don't shut up, so help me…" The promise in the deep voice was unmistakeable, and Harper swallowed nervously as he did as he was bid.

"So, let me get this straight," Rhade said in a chillingly pleasant tone. "You want me to get myself taken on at this…for want of a better description, private sex club?" He raised an eyebrow and, at Harper's mute nod, continued. "Sex club. Where you expect me to 'take the fancy' of a local female warlord who likes to play there…" A pause. "And you saw that happening how, exactly?"

Taking this as permission to speak again, Harper ventured, "You really need me to spell it out for you? Just go in, hang out, be your normal irresistible self and she'll be putty in your hands. I mean, look at you – what's not to be attracted to? Well, for people of the female persuasion anyway," he hurried on. "What can I say? I'm more partial to a little less facial hair and muscles that don't… I should shut up, right?"

And he subsided again, to a very small smile of approval from the Nietzschean, who went on, "So, having… made her acquaintance, you then want me to persuade her to tell me where she's hiding some stolen parts that you need for one of your science projects, so we can sneak in when she's not looking and take them?"

"It's a little bigger than just a science project, though I can understand you might not be able to grasp the full magnitude of it. Those Vareon flux superconverter elements are going to do wonders for our chances of getting out of this paradise sometime this lifetime. And all you need to do is cosy up with her, get her so she can't live without you, and wham bam thank you ma'am – we'll be home free!"

Rhade laughed humourlessly. At another time he might have found the whole idea amusing, enticing even, a challenge to be embraced - literally. But right now he just wasn't in the mood. Something had had him on edge since he'd woken that morning, something more than just the side effects Harper's non-stop chatter on the long ride here across the planet. It wasn't anything he could really put his finger on, but he could feel his boneblades twitching as if looking for a fight.

"I have a better idea," he said, patting the gun strapped to his thigh. "Let's just blast our way in, and ask her nicely to hand them over." And he turned and started walking to meet the guard, who had now left his post in front of the door and was advancing cautiously in their direction.

"Whoa, big guy," urged Harper, scurrying to get in front of him and stop him. "Let's not go off half-cocked here. From what I hear, Marta really doesn't respond too well to threats. Oh, and did I mention she's got a bigger gang working for her than Lunah and Bozim put together? And much as I'd love to help out, you know I'm allergic to getting beaten up. This is definitely one of those times when you should be getting in touch with your Lover side instead of being the Fighter dude, dontcha think?"

"What I think," Rhade hissed ominously in his ear, "is that you've 'heard' a lot more than you're telling. And when I get you out of here, you're going to have some explaining to do." Then he straightened up to meet the approaching heavy.

But before he could speak, the door up ahead opened and two more man-mountain-types emerged, flanking a tall heavily built woman of indeterminate years. She paused on the step, hooded eyes sweeping the alley and zooming in to play across the little group. The doorman she ignored completely, while Harper rated only a brief dismissive glance. But Rhade captured her full focus.

"Oh my, Balsen," she said loudly to the thin seedy-looking man who had followed her outside. "You've been holding out on me. I knew you didn't seriously expect me to spend good money on that pathetic bunch of faggots in there. But him – he's a different matter altogether. How much do you want for him?"

Without waiting to hear Balsen's stammered response, she marched imperiously down the alleyway and came to a halt in front of the Nietzschean, her gaze running over him lingeringly from head to toes.

"Oh, he is a big one, isn't he?" she purred softly, letting her fingers trail across his chest and down the bare flesh of his arm, seeming to mistake the quiver of distaste that ran through him for something else. "Yes, I think I could have lots of fun with him. Well, Balsen," she raised her piercing voice again, not bothering to check that the man was now standing right behind her, a worried look on his rat-like face. "Better late than never. And clever of you to dress him like a warrior – I hope he knows how to behave like one too. I'll take him."

"Ah yes, well, you see, Marta," started Balsen, wringing his hands obsequiously. "He's not actually…" The low growl starting to rumble at the back of the Nietzschean's throat had the man glancing uneasily that way, but he was proud of the fact he only shrank back a metre or so as he finished with as much defiance as he could muster, "…part of the standard menu. He's a special – gonna cost you more."

The lasciviously speculative look on the woman's face only served to raise the rumble a notch or two. "Remember… it's the way home!" murmured Harper out of the corner of his mouth as he sidled alongside, but Rhade didn't seem to even register his presence.

"I'll give you 500 for him – not a penny more." Marta put out a possessive hand to stroke him again, grunting in pain as he grabbed her wrist sharply.

"He is not for sale," he said icily.

"Balsen?" she queried, raising her other hand to prevent her two minders stepping in, though her eyes never left the deep brown ones glaring back at her. "What's going on here?"

The club owner cleared his throat before stammering, "Well, it's like this… he's not actually currently on my books. But I'm sure we can come to some mutually beneficial arrangement, eh?" This last was directed Rhade's way.

Marta simpered, the expression looking somewhat ridiculous on her heavy features. "Oh, I'm sure we can – but I don't think we need a middle man, do we, handsome? I think you and I can find an arrangement that gives us both … satisfaction, hmm?" She made to move closer, but the Nietzschean's words stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Not a chance. Not even if you were the last person on this God-forsaken rock," he said quietly, but clearly enough that all could hear. Even the small knot of people he now noticed had come out of the club to see what was going on.

Her shock was mirrored in the expressions of those around them, all of them seeming stunned that anyone would dare to turn her down in this way. Everyone but Harper, that is, who merely turned away in disgust as his plans disintegrated in front of him. "Rhade, Rhade, Rhade…" he muttered under his breath.

And from the gathering on the club steps came a muffled snigger or two as surprise gave way to appreciation.

Hot The colour rising in her cheeks as she realised the size of the audience, Marta leant forward. "Rhade, is it? Well, Rhade, you've just made a big mistake – one you're going to regret. I'll see to that." She snapped her fingers and the two big men moved menacingly past her as she stepped back.

"Oh, I doubt it," Rhade smiled wolfishly, meeting their attack with a few choice moves that ended with one of them lying moaning on the ground with a bloody nose, and the other swaying on wobbly knees in front of him staring mutely up into his gun barrel. His other gun moved casually from one to another of those remaining, ensuring they stayed rooted to the spot as he backed slowly away, Harper scampering ahead of him.

He could hear the engineer giving him all kinds of grief about what he'd just done, but he tuned it out like so much space-static. Whatever the stakes, and however powerful this woman was, the inbred pride that he had been slowly re-discovering in the months since Dylan's arrival simply would not let him accept being treated – traded, even - like a piece of meat. And if that meant finding another way out of the Seefra system, then that was the way it had to be.

Reaching the end of the alley, he flipped a finger in salute and turned to follow his swiftly disappearing colleague in the direction of their transport, not waiting to see if anyone decided to come after them.

But as he ran down the crowded main street, dodging pedestrians and conveyances alike to swerve into the side road that led to their means of escape, he caught sight of the same dark figure deep in conversation with a storeowner. And he could have sworn he saw the figure look up to stare intently his way before it was finally lost from view.

-o-o-o-


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

The feeling that something wasn't quite right stayed with Telemachus over the next few days, no matter what he did to try and shake it. But then again, he thought, it probably wasn't that surprising. Although Marta's territory was some distance away from their home base, he knew it wouldn't take someone like her long to track down the whereabouts of a fighter called Rhade. And he also knew she couldn't afford not to try and carry out her threat, not if she wanted to maintain her power base – too many people had witnessed her humiliation.

Not that he was really overly worried about her, he'd told himself. Warlords were ten a penny in this place, and she'd need to have a long arm to hurt him here, so far out of her own domain.

So why then had he been finding himself looking over his shoulder so much, sleeping with one metaphoric eye open? With his enhanced Nietzschean senses he could hear a feather fall on the far side of the room, and that had always been enough to keep him secure in the knowledge no-one could ever get the drop on him, even at night – well, providing he hadn't drunk himself to a stupor, which he was secretly proud to say was a lot rarer these days. And even if they did get that close, he was confident his strength and reflexes could take care of just about anyone or anything.

But even so, there he was, wasting precious nervous energy on it anyway.

He knew he needed to get a grip on this latent paranoia, though, if for no other reason than there were better things to be expending that energy on. Such as exacting some form of payback from Harper!

The engineer had naturally wasted no time in giving their crew-mates chapter and verse on what had gone down - reading from his own version of the book, of course, the one which omitted several key points. Including the fact that the whole abortive exercise had been his idea!

From experience, Rhade knew it just wasn't worth the effort attempting to put his own side of things, nor did he really wish to dignify the shambolic affair by letting the others think he cared enough to try. He'd therefore had to endure the expected quota of less than hilarious jokes at his expense from Beka, the benevolently amused 'that'll teach you' looks from Dylan, and Doyle's unspoken censure at what she obviously felt was his careless disregard for Harper's well-being.

Only Trance had shown him concern, though – as was usual with Trance these days - she seemed either unwilling or unable to say specifically why. But he'd felt her observing him from across the saloon, probably the only one of them who'd noticed that he never sat with his back to the door now, and he knew she sensed his unease.

In the hope that time away would put things back into perspective for him, and let the dust settle a bit on the hilarity, he allowed Dylan to talk him into taking a job that got him off the planet for a couple of days. But far from diverting his mind, the long hours alone in his ship had only given him the opportunity to come up with more questions. Like why Harper was still being so evasively tight-lipped about where he'd heard about the stolen components, and why he deemed them important enough to risk tangling with someone like Marta, for starters…

Despite the many threats (and even a few enticements) the irate Nietzschean had thrown at him on their way home, the normally voluble engineer had survived the journey without giving anything much away on his sources or plans. And he'd been very clever at not allowing himself to be cornered on the subject since then, managing with his usual slippery-tongued adeptness to turn the conversation away from his own part in the story and back to the more humorous aspects of it – those relating to his 'partner in crime'.

The realisation that Harper had at least kept Dylan and Beka even more in the dark about the whole thing than him had helped some. But beyond that, all worrying away at that particular bone had done for him was make him even more determined to beat the truth out of Harper when he got back. If he was going to spend the next however long dodging a scorned woman's fury, it was only fair he knew why he'd been put in that position in the first place, wasn't it?

Thinking about the events in the cluttered alleyway had inevitably led him to a second conundrum – the mysterious be-hatted figure that had seemed so interested in them. Even with his better than average vision, he hadn't been able to make out any distinguishing features – to be truthful, he wasn't even 100 sure whether it was a man or a woman. But an as yet undefined 'something' was making this person feel oddly familiar to him. And trying to work out what that something was had kept him occupied for the rest of his flight back to Seefra-1.

-o-

The sun was setting again as Rhade strolled back into the saloon, the hour bringing many regulars in for their daily dose of whatever vice would get them through the night. Harper was there behind the bar, as he'd expected, and he smirked inwardly as he saw the naturally pale face go just a tiny bit whiter at the sight of him.

The engineer lifted a reluctant-seeming hand in a gesture of acknowledgement, while at the same time glancing furtively around as if for some protection. Luckily for him both Dylan and Doyle were also present, so Rhade contented himself with simply offering a knowing smile in response that only seemed to discomfort Harper more.

"Welcome back." Dylan grinned warmly in greeting as he joined the group at the bar and slid onto a stool. "How did it go?"

"Much as you anticipated." Rhade accepted the drink Harper pushed his way with a nod of thanks. "I doubt Turmanov will be any help in a crisis," he continued, referring to the small-time arms dealer Hunt had sent him to talk to. "But he's not going to cause problems either. And I hardly had to resort to any… shall we say, special incentives at all." He seemed almost disappointed by that fact, and Harper paled a little more at the thought of the Nietzschean needing to look for satisfaction elsewhere.

Dylan seemed pleased enough with the outcome though, so taking a sip from his glass, Telemachus asked brightly, "So, what have I missed? Anything worth celebrating? Any major crises? Any more of Harper's brilliant ideas?"

This last brought a nervous twitch out of Harper, and, "Ideas? What about my ideas? Or should I say how many ideas do you want?" Warming to his theme, he rushed on, "This is the Harper-Meister we're talking about here, the number one idea man in this whole stinking system – no, let's make that in the known universe. Even the unknown universe. I have ideas like ordinary people breathe – it just comes naturally, and naturally they're all brilliant, so…"

"Relax, Harper," Dylan said firmly, stopping the tumble of words they all knew would otherwise probably go on ad infinitum. "We all know how brilliant you can be. Well, in some areas, anyway. Now, bartending and catering – well, I think the jury is still out on that. But anyway," he went on quickly before Harper could get started again. "In answer to your question, no, I don't think you missed anything."

"Except Beka deciding to take the Maru off for a vacation," Doyle chipped in cheerfully.

"She did what?" Rhade wasn't quite sure he'd heard right, but then on the assumption he had, "Where?"

Doyle tilted her head a little to one side as she accessed her memory banks. "She didn't exactly say. Just… any place that wasn't here?" Her voice rose in question as if she wasn't convinced that could be correct.

"Sounded that way to me," affirmed Harper with a shrug.

Dylan, though, was looking as confused as Rhade. "She said that? I thought she was just off doing one of her transport jobs. So… any idea what that's all about?"

It was Doyle's turn to shrug. "I'm not sure. But I gather that someone was getting a bit personal about her and Peter, and she… over-reacted a little."

"Oh, that does not sound good," Dylan winced. Beka wasn't one to welcome intrusions into her private life at the best of times, and her embarrassment at the ease with which she'd been taken in by the smiling time traveller a couple of months previously had done nothing to lessen that attitude. Neither had finding out that he'd really been the Nietzschean's founding father, Drago Musevni, and his only reason for being with her was to in effect make her their mother, a shock it would have taken anyone time to come to terms with.

"No, it was pretty messy," Doyle agreed, pulling a face, "but luckily not terminal. I'm sure the guy didn't really mean anything by it, and I don't think she really meant to hurt him – he just kind of caught her at a bad moment." She sighed. "I guess she's still a little more sensitive about what happened with Peter than I realised. Anyway, what with one thing and another, she thought it would be a good plan to get away for a bit – have some 'her' time, as she put it."

"Well, who can blame her," Harper said vehemently. "After what that no good, lowdown, scum-sucking, two-faced father of the worst thing to hit Earth since the Corellian Plague put her through… No offence, Rhade," he offered as an afterthought, but the Nietzschean clearly wasn't listening.

Mention of the one who'd romanced his way into Beka's life, stolen her DNA and very nearly his past - hell, make that everyone's pasts and futures before Dylan had sent him packing, had brought with it a flood of conflicting emotions. Burning rage at the way the man had toyed with him, mingled with self-contempt because he'd let him in close enough to do so. Guilt at even daring to have such feelings about the one he'd venerated his whole life as the creator of his race, the one he should honour above all. Well, apart from the Matriarch, maybe - but that was another issue, and the fact Beka had been in danger and he hadn't been here, even though he would have hated himself for feeling that he needed to protect her, just added to the turmoil.

Leaning forward, he fixed Doyle with a fierce stare. "Who was this man?" he demanded, ignoring the surprised looks his reaction drew from those around him. "Did Beka know him? What did he want? Why would he be asking her about Dra…" He caught himself before he spoke the revered name, forcing himself to remember the man not the myth. "…Peter, now, after all these weeks?"

She frowned at this onslaught, flicking her hair back over her shoulders as she considered her reply. "I'm not sure he actually wanted anything. More likely he was just running off at the mouth a bit, helped along by an excess of Harper's finest. But then again, I heard there's been some stranger asking questions about Peter down on the Southside, and so maybe the guy just saw Beka and decided to make himself a bit on the side by finding out what he could from her and selling it on."

And with that, all the unease of the past days returned hundredfold, merging with the other emotions to send Rhade's adrenaline levels sky high. He knew without doubt that the stranger was the same one he'd seen before, though he had no real evidence for that supposition. But that was immaterial – the important thing was that the chance was now there for him to take some action towards solving that particular mystery. And he badly needed an outlet for the pent-up aggression that was surging through him.

His gaze unwavering, he fired off another interrogative barrage at the female android. "What did this stranger look like? Who did he question? What was he asking? Where was he last seen?"

Doyle's frown deepened, tinged with confusion, as she responded. "Well, I didn't see him myself. Last I heard he was down near the market. But that was…"

Without waiting for her to finish, Rhade pushed himself to his feet and stormed across the bar, its patrons scattering before him as he barged through the doors and out into the gathering dusk.

"…yesterday," she concluded, turning a blank look on her remaining companions. "What just happened?"

"I have no idea," Dylan said with a sigh, as he too stood. "But I think I'd better go keep an eye on him, see if I can find out."

Hurrying along the darkening street after the Nietzschean's retreating back, he became distantly aware of an insect-like whine from somewhere above him, but he was too absorbed in keeping track of his errant crewmember to give it much thought. And it didn't take him long to find him. Turning a corner into the square that played host to the barter-fests that masqueraded as markets in this town, he almost ran full-tilt into Rhade, standing stock-still in the middle of the road.

"Whoa," he muttered to himself, skidding to a halt beside him before asking, "What's gotten into you? Are you OK?"

Telemachus was looking up and around the dark, empty space with a slightly puzzled expression on his face. "Did you feel that?" he said

"Feel what?"

"Something… a mist, something damp, something…" He broke off and focused properly on Hunt. "Dylan. What are you doing here?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Dylan responded. "What's going on, Rhade? What's got you so worked up?" As he spoke, he realised that he could in fact feel a faint moistness in the air, an unusual sensation in Seefra-1's desert-like climate. But it disappeared almost before he'd registered its presence, so he let it do the same from his mind.

"I was looking for someone… something, but…" Rhade's forehead creased as he looked around again, "it doesn't look like I'm going to find it here." He couldn't explain it, but for a brief moment there he'd almost forgotten who he was, let alone where or why he was there. And though he knew he should be hunting down the stranger, the all-consuming drive that had brought him down here had faded away, leaving him feeling detached and lethargic and wanting to do nothing more than sleep.

Realising that there wasn't going to be anything more immediately forthcoming, and knowing the futility of trying to force a Nietzschean to talk when he didn't want to, Dylan simply nodded back the way they'd come. "Come on, let's get out of here," he said encouragingly, thinking there'd be time enough to coax the story out of him later.

And with one more glance behind him, Rhade allowed himself to be led off towards the saloon and home.

Somewhere up above them, a dark figure withdrew from its vantage point overlooking the square, sliding over to a large case that stood open on the far side of the flat roof. Patiently it waited as one by one the tiny silvery drones whirred out of the night to settle back into their allotted spaces, then, with the lid closed and locked, gathered it up and slipped silently down the back stairs and away.

-o-o-o-


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

Bright sunshine trickling through the ragged cloth serving as curtains finally percolated Rhade's deep but dream-filled sleep, and with a groan he rolled away, throwing an arm over his eyes to keep out the light. His head felt thick and muzzy, as if he'd been on a bender the previous night, and it took a lot more thinking than he was happy with to remember that he'd in fact come straight to bed without even visiting the bar. And he could swear he'd done nothing that might account for the niggling little aches and pains that started up in his joints when he moved.

From the strength of the sun he guessed it was already late morning, and he was vaguely surprised no one had come looking for him. But then again, if the slowly returning memories were anything to go by, they probably reckoned it would be safer to let sleeping Nietzscheans lie. He had a vision of Dylan and Doyle pressing him for reasons for his seeming obsession with this stranger, his reaction to which had been less than civil. But it came as somewhat of a shock to realise that this was at least the second morning in a row he'd woken up feeling like crap without having done anything to deserve it.

He wondered hazily if he should be worried about this, but it wasn't in his nature to be concerned about his physical condition – whatever was causing it, his innate recuperative powers would deal with it, and his strength of purpose would carry him through until they did.

But given how much effort it took him to just get out of bed, he found himself praying that it would be quick.

Once he was up and moving, however, he started to feel a bit better, and breakfast definitely helped that process further. That meant he was able to respond to Dylan's request that he join them up on Andromeda for a briefing with something resembling enthusiasm.

His relatively cheerful greeting on arrival seemed to set the others at ease, the rather apprehensive expressions they were trying to hide clearing to be replaced by more welcoming grins. He wondered in passing what he might have done to make them nervous, but as in the main that was part and parcel of being who and what he was, he let it go and gave his concentration over to Hunt's latest grand scheme.

The meeting was short, for which Rhade was grateful – for some reason the warship's environmental controls seemed to be malfunctioning, causing the temperature in the meeting room to grow increasingly chilly as time went by. None of the others appeared to have noticed, though, if their blank-faced reaction to his "Is it getting cold in here?" was anything to go by, which was strange.

But it wouldn't do to let them see him show any weakness, not when there was bound to be a logical explanation, so he instinctively provoked a haranguing match with Harper, asserting he'd seen him shiver which must therefore mean he was demonstrating his usual yellow streak at the thought of the proposed job. By the time Dylan had stepped in to get the session back on track, he felt sure he'd distracted everyone well enough to avoid comment.

But he was glad to get out of there and be heading back to Seefra's warmth for a few hours while he and Doyle helped Harper pull together the gear he needed.

Once the door slid closed behind them, Dylan flashed a thoughtful look at Trance as he asked for Andromeda's confirmation that the room's temperature had remained at a constant and very comfortable level the entire time. Once she'd obliged, he raised an eyebrow. "That was odd."

Trance's expression was equally pensive. "I would have to agree. I don't believe I've ever heard Rhade complain of the cold before."

"No, that would be a first for me too. Andromeda, did you notice anything different about Rhade's bio-readings?"

"His body temperature was slightly elevated compared to the last time he was on board," the AI responded, "but still well within normal parameters for a Nietzschean. My standard monitoring level for members of the crew only checks external indicators, though. Do you wish me to run a deeper scan?"

Dylan considered that briefly but, knowing how Rhade would react to such an invasion of privacy should he find out, declined her offer for now. With luck it wouldn't be necessary, and he had enough flak to dodge from external sources to want to create more needless friction within his own team.

"You're worried about him," Trance said quietly.

He sighed, but shook his head. "Not really. Not yet, anyway. He can be a pig-headed so and so, but if there is anything to worry about he's not stupid enough to keep it to himself indefinitely. He'll tell us when he's ready."

But he was all too aware that, if it came to that point, it might already be too late.

-o-

Even later, Rhade couldn't say for sure how it happened. One second he was hefting a crate of Harper's space junk off the back of their land transport, the next he was flat on his back on the dusty road, pinned there by its mass and struggling to understand why he couldn't shift it. While it was more than heavy enough to tax most normal humans' strength, he'd managed to move it alone earlier, if not exactly with ease then at least without straining anything. So it had come as a complete surprise when this time his muscles had refused to support the weight.

He knew he should have just dropped it, but shock kept his fingers hooked round its base as his legs crumpled beneath him, taking him and his burden groundwards.

Doyle's face appeared above him, blocking out the unexpected view of Seefra's suns. "Rhade, what happened? Are you OK?" she asked, expression quizzical.

"Get this thing off me," he growled, the hot flush of embarrassment rising through him jolting him out of his stunned state. He was grimly aware that passers-by were pausing to stare at the unusual spectacle of the big Nietzschean in anything other than a position of superiority, a few chuckles starting up which only served to add to his discomfiture.

Stooping to grasp the offending item, the android lifted it effortlessly clear of him and dumped it back on the vehicle, before turning to offer him a hand up. But he'd already scrambled unsteadily to his feet, scowling around him like a cornered wolf desperate to get out of the public eye so he could lick his wounds in private.

"Hey, what's the big idea, Mr. Clumsy?" demanded Harper, irately. "Some of that stuff is fragile. I don't know what exactly, or if I'm actually going to need any of it, but if I do and you've broken it, I'll be adding it to your bar bill! And you better not think this is going to get you out of helping." But all he got in reply was a wordless snarl and a big hand shoving him aside – though strangely it didn't seem to pack the power he was expecting, so that he merely took a step back instead of being sent staggering out of the way.

But Rhade gave him no chance to comment further, disappearing in the direction of his quarters with his head down, avoiding all eye contact. Doyle watched him go thoughtfully, spotting out of the corner of her eye a couple of others in the now dispersing gaggle of onlookers doing the same. Then, ignoring Harper's indignant, "Sheesh! What's with that guy these days?" she fished out her communicator and thumbed it on. "Dylan? I think we have a problem."

-o-

Back in the sanctuary of his room, Rhade sank wearily down on the bed and lowered his suddenly aching head into his hands. The enclosed space felt hot and stifling, not something he'd ever noticed about the place before and because of that he didn't really know how to make things better.

And the same could probably be said for himself.

Apart from a couple of serious injuries incurred while leading the Tarazed Home Guard in defence of their planet, and maybe the self-inflicted misery of the odd post-binge hangover during his sojourn here, he couldn't remember a time in his life when he hadn't felt totally in tune with his body and its capabilities.

Even after he'd been on the wrong end of a beating, or got pushed to the limit through over-exertion or lack of sleep, the thought never occurred to him that he wouldn't be back operating on all cylinders within a day or two at the most. It was something he just took for granted – all Nietzscheans did.

But his body was letting him down right now, and he simply didn't know why – or worse, how to fix it.

Everything felt wrong – sounds seemed muffled, vision a little blurred, the mingled aromas drifting on the sluggish air less easy to distinguish from each other, and the physical strength he'd always been able to call upon at will no longer as potent. Even his normal agility seemed impaired, his joints stiffer and his balance off kilter.

And he was horribly sure that if he put a hand to his face right now, it would come away damp with what would have to be perspiration.

If he didn't know it to be chronologically impossible, he would have thought himself to be suffering from the onset of old age – a rarity amongst his race given their genetics, and the fact most males preferred to die in battle while still at the height of their powers than live to endure the indignities of dotage. But he was still young and in his prime, so there had to be another explanation. He just needed to find the wherewithal to discover it.

His mind started to wander, coming to rest with a jolt on the now sharpening image of the dark figure that had dogged him over the past week. That had to be it, didn't it? Ever since that first sighting he'd known trouble was coming, so it made sense the stranger had to have something to do with what was happening to him. And that thought brought him to his feet, so intent on resuming his pursuit of the nameless faceless one that it came as a real shock to realise someone had entered the room and he hadn't even noticed.

"Whatever it is, Doyle, I don't have time," he said as he went to push past her, hoping to cover up his laxity, but she held her ground, folding her arms and smiling up at him.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"None of your business," he retorted gruffly. "What the hell are you doing here anyway?"

Ignoring his aggressive tone, she replied, "Dylan wants to talk to you."

He snorted derisively. "He sent you here to tell me that? What's the matter? The high and mighty Captain Hunt too busy to call me himself?"

She sighed. "He's been trying. But you weren't answering and he became… concerned."

That raised a frown as Rhade glanced back round the room, trying to remember where he'd left his com-unit.

"Try your pocket," Doyle suggested, and he did so, throwing her a dirty look when she was proved right. The unit itself, though, rattled terminally when he pulled it out, and he realised it must have been broken during his crate-wrestling exploits. And with that the throbbing nag of bruised flesh he'd been trying to tune out broke through with a vengeance, every point of impact reminding him of how heavy the damn thing had felt.

Though he tried to blank it out again, something in his expression must have given him away, because Doyle reached out to rest a hand on his arm as she said gently, "You have to admit, you haven't been yourself the past day or so. If something's wrong, tell us what so we can try and help. Or at least let Trance and Andromeda check you over – that's all Dylan wanted to suggest."

He turned away, alarmed by the unexpected surge of emotion her kindness evoked in him. Part of him, driven by pride, demanded he say nothing, abhorring the thought of admitting weakness to anyone, even those who knew him best. Stay focussed, it said, concentrate on finding the one who has to be responsible and deal with the problem yourself.

Another part of him, though, whispered that it wouldn't hurt to find out more about what was happening to him, to give himself the advantage when he did come face to face with his nemesis. And he didn't have to disclose the full extent of his fears, did he? Just enough for Trance to work with…

"Rhade?" Doyle prompted, forcing a decision from him.

"There's nothing wrong a bit of time out from Dylan's do-gooding won't fix," he said blandly. "But if it will make him feel better, and give Trance something to do, why not?"

She gave him a broad encouraging smile with something more hidden behind it that, as he followed her from the room, he was surprised to recognise as relief.

-o-o-o-


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

"So, tell me there's nothing to worry about." Dylan's voice slipped clandestinely into Trance's consciousness as she stood in an empty med deck, deep in thought, and she turned to find him peering round the doorframe at her.

"I don't think I can say that," she said with a small apologetic smile.

Dylan came fully into the room. "Then you found something?" he asked.

Trance pulled a wry face, and shook her head. "No, I don't think I can say that either. Well," she amended hastily, seeing the concern in his expression, "not exactly."

"Trance…" he started with more than a hint of exasperation colouring his tone, but she didn't give him time to continue.

"I'm sorry, Dylan, but I don't know what to tell you. Andromeda and I ran all the tests we could think of – well, as many as Rhade would let us, before he…" She broke off briefly, eyes troubled, but went on before he could comment. "We confirmed that his muscle-to-strength ratio has diminished, that his hearing, eyesight and sense of smell are deteriorating, and that his metabolism is no longer protecting him from the environment, from his surroundings, in the way that it did. But we just couldn't find any specific reason for it."

Hunt stared at her for a few moments, turning over in his mind what she'd just said before suggesting, "Some kind of virus, maybe?"

She shrugged. "We couldn't find any obvious trace. And besides, there have been no other similar cases reported on any of the planets Rhade has visited recently, which you'd expect if it was viral."

"Poison, then? Someone slipped some kind of toxin into his drink? It's not like he hasn't made a few enemies in his time here."

"That may be true. But again, we found no evidence of any toxins in his system. Even his blood alcohol level was minimal."

Dylan paced the deck, moving restlessly away from her and back again as he said, "This is ridiculous. There has to be some reason for this happening. And where is he, anyway? We need to get to the bottom of this, and the best place for that is here."

She hesitated a moment, obviously choosing her words with care. "He left a few minutes ago. I don't think he… liked what we had to tell him."

"Which was?"

She sighed. "The fact is, although all the readings we got from him are well below normal for a Nietzschean, they would actually be quite acceptable for a human. "

"And you told Rhade this?"

Trance gave a tiny nod. "Yes. Well, actually Andromeda did. But you can't blame her - it was the truth, after all. I just don't think I would have phrased it quite that way myself…"

"Oh, great! I bet that went down really well." Dylan could just imagine the blow this would have been to his friend's sometimes-fragile self-esteem. For a Nietzschean to be told he was no better than normal _homo sapiens_ was one of the biggest insults someone could offer him.

"No, it didn't go down well at all," she confirmed sadly, seeing again the anger burning in Rhade's eyes as he'd misread their concern for a pity he had no use for, hearing his harsh words of rebuke and denial. But it hadn't quite masked the fear she'd sensed rising in him in the seconds before he stormed from the room, a fear she was now beginning to share for him. "I'm sorry, Dylan," she said again. "I feel I should be better at working with this equipment, at understanding what it's telling me and seeing beyond the data to the true cause. I can't help thinking I ought to have found something that would help."

He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's OK, Trance. I know you're doing all you can. And don't worry - we'll work out what's going on."

The door hissed open, and they both looked up to see Doyle march in, a scowl darkening her features. "Ever tried getting into a shuttle when the pilot doesn't want you to? I thought I was going to get spaced."

"I take it Rhade didn't hang around for a chat," Dylan surmised, and the look she gave him confirmed it.

"He was pretty angry, but in the circumstances I figured someone ought to keep an eye on him. He didn't seem to want company, though. Or maybe it was just me."

"No, I can imagine he wouldn't want anyone around right now," Hunt agreed. "He's probably planning on working himself up into one of those major Nietzschean depressions of his. But you know what? I don't feel inclined to let him. Let's go and spoil his fun."

"Are you sure that's wise?" asked Trance anxiously. "He seemed like he needed a bit of time to… adjust."

"Well, that's as maybe. But whatever he says, sulking isn't healthy. What you need at a time like this is your friends around you, supporting you – he just needs reminding of that." Dylan was already shepherding Doyle towards the door as he spoke, but he paused to look back and say, "Are you coming?"

"No, I think I'll take another look at these test results," Trance said pensively, picking up a data pad. "Something really doesn't feel right about this." And she was totally immersed in whatever she was reading before the others had even left the room.

-o-

Night time again and the streets of Seefra town were for the most part empty of pedestrians, those people with reason to still be out and about sticking mostly to the main drag. Only the handful with more nefarious business on the less well-travelled back alleys found themselves crossing the path of the tall Nietzschean striding through the shadowed spaces, obviously engrossed in getting where he was going as quickly as possible. And if, instead of taking immediate steps to get out of the way of what would normally spell potential trouble, they paused to watch him pass speculatively, Rhade was too distracted to notice.

Despite the focussed intent of his glowering exterior, inside he was in turmoil. Andromeda's matter-of-fact statement about his current physical condition had undermined the very foundations of what made him who he was – the undeniable belief that he, in common with his race, was in every way superior to mere men. Even among Nietzscheans, exceptional strength of mind and body were more than just desirable – they were vital if you wanted your line to continue. And there was no higher cultural imperative than ensuring the survival of your DNA through attracting and bonding with the best mates, and fathering as many children with them as possible.

But without these strengths, without the things that had won him Jillian's love, and earned him those few precious days with Louisa, what was he? Even here, where the women represented nothing more important or lasting to him than a few hours escape from the harsh realities of his life, and the memories of all he'd lost, he knew it had only been his enhanced physicality and the authority that gave him over the more ordinary male that brought them flocking to his side – and his bed. But now, now he was no better than the average Seefran, how many of them would still choose him over others?

And worse, should they miraculously manage to find a way back to their own space, how would he ever be able to return to his people? He'd be outcast as soon as the first challenge came his way and he was proven unworthy. What Nietzschean woman would look twice at him once they knew, let alone accept him as their mate? And without that, what chance did he have of creating another family to replace the one taken from him so cruelly. Of ensuring his name lived on for generations to come?

His introspection was so complete that the first indication he had of not being totally alone was the heavy blow that landed on the back of his skull, hard enough to rattle his brain and drive him to the ground. And by the time he'd recovered sufficiently to realise what was going on, he was pinned face down in the dirt by a weight between his shoulders, his arms tied tightly behind his back, ankles bound equally securely. The coarse fabric of the bag that had been pulled over his head rubbed harshly against his skin, the fibres catching in his throat and nose as he fought to control his breathing.

He knew it was futile but he struggled anyway, heaving against his bonds, trying to turn himself so he could in some way retaliate against his unseen enemy. But when he flexed his forearms in automatic signal to his boneblades to extend, hoping he could inflict some damage on whoever was holding him down, he was shocked almost to immobility to find they simply wouldn't respond.

"That's right," whispered a gravelly voice in his ear. "Not so superior now, eh? How does it feel to be powerless? To be stripped of your unearned advantages, your obscene arrogance? And by a pure-blood human, no less! Yes, I did this to you. And after I've taken care of you, brought you down to the level of the animal you truly are, I'm going to go back and do the same to all your filthy kind."

Rhade bucked under his restraints again, a roar of frustrated rage building through him. But before it could reach a crescendo, another starburst of excruciating pain exploded in his head, and he was sent spiralling away into the crushing blackness that ensued.

-o-o-o-


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 6**

"Hey boss, welcome back!" Harper's voice rang out across the half empty saloon, completely ruining Beka's furtive attempt to check out who was in there without being seen herself. With a scowl, she stopped peering round the open door and came into the room.

"Gee Harper, why don't you just take an ad out, let the whole town know?" she said as she reached the bar, voice dripping with sarcasm, but it was water off a duck's back to the part time barman.

"It's OK, Karlsen's not here – haven't seen him since you… well, you know. Haven't seen any of his friends today either, so I reckon you're safe for now."

Nonetheless, Beka threw a cautious glance over her shoulder to check if anyone was paying her undue attention, finding only a few early afternoon topers too interested in the contents of their glasses to care about anything else. Moving between the tables, the girl who helped out in the smoke-hole of a kitchen was wielding a broom in a losing battle against the incessant sandy dust that always managed to find its way back in from the street, no matter how often it was swept out. Particles of the stuff hung in the air, settling back onto any exposed surface as soon as she'd moved on, making the whole exercise rather pointless – just like most things here.

Seeing no obvious threats, though, Beka relaxed a little, sliding onto a stool and hunching forward to rest her elbows on the counter.

"Glad the guy's OK," she admitted, albeit a little reluctantly, "even if he is complete sleazoid. And nuts, too - I mean, what the hell did he think was going to happen, getting in my face, pawing me, for God's sake?" She shuddered in disgust. "That I was going to thank him kindly for his interest and tell him all about how Peter, Drago, whatever his name was, made a complete fool of me? As if…"

"Yeah, what an ass," Harper deadpanned. "Doesn't he know men have died for less?" And he suddenly began polishing some invisible speck on the glass he was holding to avoid the dirty glare Beka threw him. "So, how was your vacation?" he went on in a more placatory tone, putting the glass down and pouring her a drink. "Did you miss us?"

"Like a hole in the head," she responded coolly, accepting the drink nonetheless.

"So, I'm guessing no postcards, then?" And that did at least raise a small smile from her, despite herself.

It had in fact been really nice to have a little time alone, with no one to worry about but herself. She'd done a few odd jobs around the Maru that she'd been putting off for too long, then gone and drummed up a nice simple cargo run, just to keep her hand in. No one shooting at her, no one trying to blindside her – how relaxing was that? Well, for a couple of days, anyway. Though she'd never admit it to anyone else, after that it had all started to feel a bit too quiet, and she'd found herself actually relishing the thought of getting back to the craziness.

Her return to Andromeda the previous evening hadn't given her quite the welcome she'd been expecting, though. A distracted Dylan, with Doyle in tow, had met her at the hanger doors, but it became immediately clear they weren't there to see her. Some problem with Rhade, apparently, but to be honest she was a bit too miffed at their lukewarm greeting to enquire too deeply into the what's and whyfore's.

She'd declined Dylan's barely disguised demand that she join them in pulling the Nietzschean out of whatever hole he'd dug for himself this time, in favour of a shower and raiding Andromeda's food stores. He was a big boy and, in her experience, more than capable of looking after himself.

Besides, she hadn't been quite ready to go back down to the planet just then. She'd known the man she'd vented her underlying frustration on was going to recover fine, but she hadn't felt like risking another confrontation with him or his friends. Whatever she'd told Harper, deep down she knew her reaction had been excessive, and she really didn't like the way she'd let that smug time-travelling bastard stay under her skin for so long.

But with a few days to work on it, she was close to convincing herself she'd pretty much got him out of her system now. She was even starting to look forward to future opportunities to actually play the Matriarch card he'd handed her. The idea of being able to lord it – or perhaps 'mother it' would be a more appropriate description! – over the entire Nietzschean race was quite a heady one. It was just a shame she was going to have to wait until they worked out a way back through the Route of Ages to actually get a chance to shine.

Which didn't mean she couldn't get a little practice in, even if there was only one person here it might work on. And speaking of which…

"So, what's Rhade got himself into this time?" she asked, breaking out of her momentary reverie. "Andromeda told me Dylan didn't get back until early this morning, but she went all Captain's pet on me when I asked what was going on, said I'd have to talk to him."

"Gotta say, the big guy's been acting pretty weird while you were away, even for him," Harper said with a frown. "Like, more paranoid than usual, if that's possible, being really clumsy and dropping stuff, rushing off places then coming back and lurking in his room a lot. Not even drinking, for God's sake! You know, I think I even saw him sweating yesterday – Nietzscheans aren't supposed to do that, are they?"

His question was obviously rhetorical, though, because he didn't wait for a reply. "Dylan and Doyle came here looking for him last night, said he'd left Andromeda in a hurry, but I hadn't seen him since he baled out on the job we were supposed to be doing..." He paused, looking around as if seeing the bar for the first time. "Come to think of it, he's usually been in for breakfast by now. I wonder where he's got to."

Beka snorted. "Probably bedded down with some bimbo he picked up in a gutter somewhere, or sleeping off another hangover," she said cattishly. "But if you're that worried about him, why don't you go see if he needs a wake-up call?"

"Oh yeah, right, like I'm going to walk in on a sleeping Nietzschean unannounced! You know me better than that – since when did I have a death wish?"

She picked up her glass again, but as she raised it to her lips she was surprised to see it slip from her suddenly feeble grip to crash back onto the bar, rolling off to smash on the floor. Her vision swam just a little and she had to screw her eyes up to see straight enough to focus on Harper. "What've y'done to m'drink?" she slurred indignantly

"Beka?" Harper reached a hand to steady her, his consternation clear in his rather unaccustomed use of her first name. "You OK?"

"Need t'sleep," she mumbled vaguely, swaying on her stool. And with no further ado she slumped forward, rested her head on her folded arms and started snoring.

And, apart from a heartfelt "Oh, crap…!", Harper could do nothing but stand and stare in disbelief.

-o-

Consciousness returned slowly to Rhade, and with it a raft of aches and pains that he couldn't remember acquiring. His head thumped dully, his ribs complained vociferously where they pressed against the unforgiving ground, and the muscles of his arms and shoulders were burning – no doubt due to the way they were held cruelly behind him, he realised foggily. Only his hands and feet were pain-free, but that was probably only because he seemed to have lost all feeling in them.

He prised his eyes open, but his reward was a total blackness that gave him no clue to his surroundings. As he gingerly shifted his head, though, the rasp of rough cloth against his cheek brought memory of how he'd got into this situation flooding back, and he realised he was still wearing the hood his captor had managed to get on him.

That he could have allowed himself to be taken so easily sent a burst of anger through him, and he spent a few fruitless minutes trying to free himself from whatever was keeping his arms and legs bound together. But all he succeeded in doing was adding to his discomfort, a stamina-sapping soreness pervading every inch of his body, and the warm wetness of blood trickling from his apparently gauntlet-free wrists where the bindings had torn through the skin there.

Forcing himself to lay still, he tried to find that inner strength and balance that would at one time have allowed him to absorb and accept his circumstances, so he could focus all his mental energy on finding a way out. But it seemed to have deserted him – just like everything else that up until a couple of days ago had defined his existence. All that remained was the Nietzschean penchant for depression, and he had to fight hard to avoid succumbing to the allure of simply sinking into apathetic oblivion.

The quiet darkness was all-consuming, though, no matter how desperately he strained to pick up any stray sounds that might tell him where he was, and the mustiness of the bag prevented him smelling anything else. And anyway, the increasingly relentless pounding in his head made it too difficult to concentrate for long, allowing the lethargy to seep in and wrap itself around him.

He wasn't sure how much time passed before some little something trickled into his awareness, something that told him he wasn't alone, that there was someone else in the near vicinity. And he felt a shiver of disquiet as he realised he had absolutely no idea when whoever it was had arrived. Or maybe they'd been there all along – though that thought didn't help his pride much. No Nietzschean worth his salt would have failed to pick up the obvious changes in sound, scent, air movement caused by another living being.

So what did that make him?

The urge to speak, to demand to know who was there, grew stronger as time ticked by, but he told himself to remain silent, in turn daring, cajoling, threatening, all in order to maintain some semblance of control over a situation in which he patently had none. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, though, as if counting off the seconds, while the adrenaline levels building within him screamed for some kind of outlet. And he couldn't even call on the deep breathing he might have used to calm himself – his ribs hurt too much, and in any case his nose and mouth were impeded by the stifling hood, making it almost impossible to do anything other than obtain air in shallow gasps.

Gasps that brought with them dust and fibres to tickle his airways and set off a coughing fit that racked his body and left him shuddering miserably in its aftermath, unable to move or even think straight. Pathetic, he knew, but he didn't have the energy to do anything more. He could only be grateful none of his family was here to see him brought so low.

Thankfully the spasms subsided after a bit, at least enough for the silent waiting game to resume. And he felt a slightly hysterical burst of gratification when the silence was finally broken - by his unseen adversary and not him.

"I know you know I'm here," a low voice said, from far nearer than he'd expected. "So you might as well stop pretending. Mind you, it took you long enough – I've been watching you for the better part of an hour. Your feeble struggles to free yourself, your panic when you couldn't – how does it feel to know your precious Nietzschean heritage is a thing of the past for you?"

"Who are you?" he demanded in what he hoped would be a fierce manner, but which came out as a painfully dry croak.

"The one who has made you what you are now. Or maybe 'unmade' might be a better description." The off-hand comment was followed by a satisfied chuckle that raised the hairs on the back of Rhade's neck. "Unfortunately I didn't get here early enough to prevent you being made at all. But no matter – you're living proof that we have the means to undo all that the deviant Museveni took it upon himself to do, and gain lasting recompense for all the horrors you and your kind have inflicted on the Tri-Galaxies in the generations since. The balance of power will return to its rightful owners – pure-bred humans, not genetically altered filth with delusions of grandeur!"

"You have to be joking," Rhade rasped, not sure whether to laugh or cry. The unseen speaker's tone was conversational, reasoned, at odds with the harsh content, but for all that he could hear the underlying animosity, sense the conviction there. And it all sounded somehow familiar, though he didn't think he'd heard the voice before. Not young, not old either, well-educated, but tainted by a self-obsessive arrogance that gave it an unhealthy timbre.

"Joking? Believe that if you wish, but I can assure you I'm quite serious. You want to know how we're going to do it? We call it the Delilah Complex – something you've already sampled to great effect. And now I know it works so successfully we can move on to the next phase of our plan."

"Which is?" he forced himself to ask, although he was quite sure he wouldn't like the answer.

"No harm in you knowing, I suppose." Rhade could hear the casual shrug behind the words even if he couldn't see it. "There's nothing you can do about it now. It seems there are a lot of people you've upset during your time here, and once I've sold you off to the highest bidder you'll be far too busy to worry about it any more. Well, either that or dead… Anyway, I digress – let me explain all. Are you lying comfortably? No? Shame – I'll begin anyway."

Close to overload already from that last bombshell, Rhade was forced to listen in dumbfounded silence as the other babbled on, horrified by what he was hearing.

And by the time it was finished, and he was temporarily alone again, what little hope he might have been clinging to for himself was long gone.

-o-o-o-


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 7**

Click-click. Click-click. Click-click-click. Click-click.

The irritatingly monotonous noises coming from the far side of the room finally made a big enough dent in Dylan's composure to warrant a stern "Harper, for heaven's sakes, stop it!"

The younger man jumped nervously and snatched his hand away from the switch he'd been flicking pointlessly on and off, automatically pulling on his best 'who me?' expression as his mouth opened to deny all responsibility. But a glance around seemed to remind him where he was and who he was with, and he ended up just giving a rueful shrug.

"Sorry, boss – just a little freaked, I guess. I mean, first Rhade starts acting weird, and then Beka goes all 'sleeping beauty' on me in the middle of the bar, which I can tell you didn't do my lunchtime trade any good. Who's going to be next?"

"Hopefully no one," Hunt said firmly. "And there's no point in worrying about it until we know exactly what's happening with Beka. She could just have picked something up on her little vacation, nothing to do with what's going on with Rhade."

"Yeah, and I'm the tooth fairy! Since when did you start believing in coincidences?"

Dylan considered that briefly. "Well, OK, maybe not normally," he agreed, "but believe it or not, even I get proved wrong sometimes. There's always the exception that breaks the rule."

"This would not be that occasion, I'm afraid." Unnoticed by either of them, Trance had slipped onto the Command Deck, moving silently forward to stand looking from one to the other.

"Trance!" Harper exclaimed, bounding over to her. "How's Beka? She's gonna be OK, right? Not that I'm worried or anything, because, you know, she's real tough and always pulls through, whatever. But… just tell me she'll be alright, please!"

"Beka is sleeping comfortably and, as far as I can tell, for the moment she's stable."

"As far as you can tell?" Dylan demanded. "You still don't know what's doing this to her?"

She looked up at him. "I can tell you what it isn't. Just as with Rhade, Andromeda and I could find no sign of any virus, no poisons, narcotics or other toxins. Beka just seems… tired."

"We all get tired, Trance. Well, we humans do, anyway. But it doesn't usually make us take unexpected naps in public in the middle of the day."

"This is true. Which is why I've been trying to look outside the known, to see if the answer might lie hidden behind that which we don't yet understand."

"Oh please, enough with the riddles," groaned Harper. "It makes my head hurt! Why can't you just answer a question straight like a normal person?"

Trance threw him a long-suffering look, but spoke directly to Dylan as she continued. "You remember I said Rhade's test results didn't feel right? Well, that's because there was something there. But because it wasn't really what we were looking for, it didn't register on Andromeda's scans. So I changed the search parameters and went through all the test data again."

"And found?" he prompted impatiently.

"We're still not exactly certain what caused it," she said hesitantly, "because that doesn't seem to be anything Andromeda has come across before. And it's very faint. But something in Rhade's system was giving off an unusual temporal signature."

The two men shared a somewhat confused glance, before Dylan queried, "Wait a minute. Are you saying that whatever's doing this is from the future?"

"Or the past," she shrugged. "But most likely the future, otherwise Andromeda would almost certainly have had reference to it in her databases.

"And Beka?" asked Harper

"She does seem to have the same signature present. But if I'm not mistaken…" She looked up expectantly and a few seconds later Doyle came in, a look of grim satisfaction on her face.

"You were right," the android said, without preamble. "I checked it all out – dirt, buildings, clothing, hair samples. The same thing everywhere. We all got dosed with this stuff, whatever it is!"

Hunt held up his hand, with a short laugh. "Whoa. Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on here?"

Trance turned huge troubled eyes his way. "Doyle remembered something odd from the night before Rhade's problems seemed to begin."

"What, you mean apart from the fact he went completely loco and started chasing shadows?" snorted Harper. "But then, that's Nietzscheans for you, always…"

"Odd how?" interrupted Dylan intently, ignoring the engineer completely as he focussed on the new arrival.

"A sound that didn't belong," she responded promptly, "and something in the air. Only I was too busy at the time thinking about why Rhade had reacted like that, and didn't realise it until I ran through everything again today."

He let his own mind flow back over that evening, vaguely recalling the strange whining noise above the marketplace and the fleeting moistness that followed. "Yes, I think I know what you mean."

Harper cocked a sceptical 'you do?' eyebrow, but remained silent as Trance went on. "What Doyle has just established is that traces of whatever is carrying this signature are spread all over Seefra Town, and those in it." She held up the datapad she'd been holding, so they could see it. "And that includes herself and both of you. We believe that noise might have been some kind of general distribution device, though we can't be sure."

There was a slightly stunned silence as this piece of news was absorbed.

"But…" Harper started, frowning at the implications fighting to make themselves apparent.

"Yes," nodded Trance. "But only Beka and Rhade have been affected."

Expression clearing, he went on, "And the only thing they have in common, apart from an unhealthy love of wearing leather, and playing with things that go bang, is…"

"Their DNA," finished Dylan. "Which means this is personal."

"Or personally Nietzschean." Harper paused as a thought came to him. "Hey, hold on - Beka wasn't here that night."

"Maybe not," said Doyle. "But the traces remain, certainly enough to affect her once she was exposed to them. And she'd have had difficulty avoiding that down there."

"Dust," agreed Harper, nose twitching sympathetically. "Gets everywhere."

"So," said Dylan slowly, "now we know what this is, what can we do about it?"

Trance sighed. "It's a start, but I fear we're nowhere near a solution yet. I think we can assume it's some kind of genetically targeted virus, but so far we haven't managed to isolate it. And until we do we can't even begin to work on an antidote. We don't even know its purpose – Beka and Rhade may share the same base DNA markers, but she doesn't have his Nietzschean bioengineering. The effects could be very different in each of them, requiring alternate remedies."

The Captain stared off into space for so long the others began to wonder if he'd lost interest. But eventually he blinked and looked round at them. "This is beginning to get me seriously pissed," he declared firmly. "Harper, you're right – now is no time to be believing in coincidence. A ship comes through the Route of Ages, then disappears without a trace. A stranger turns up asking questions about Beka's love life, and all of a sudden the only two people on Seefra One with Nietzschean DNA get struck down by some mysterious futuristic malady? My people… and I don't like it."

"Of course I'm right," Harper retorted. "Aren't I always? And I'm with you there - what's to like? But… what are we gonna do about it?"

"What do we know about this stranger?" Dylan asked thoughtfully.

It was Doyle who answered. "Nothing much, really. From what I've been hearing, first sightings would probably be a couple of days after that ship came through, though I don't think any of us have personal experience to back that up. Except maybe Rhade, from his reaction – seemed like he knew something he wasn't telling."

"Then we need to find Rhade."

"Excuse me, but didn't you try that already?" Harper pointed out. "Seems to me if he's off on one of his mega-sulks he might not want to be found."

"This isn't just about him any more, though. Andromeda?" Dylan turned to the forward screen as his ship's AI appeared with her customary formal greeting. "Now we have this temporal signature, can you use it to locate Rhade?"

"No," she replied with a hint of apology in her computer-generated tone. "As you've heard, the area is saturated with similar traces. It would be impossible to distinguish him from the other humanoid forms on the planet. However…" She paused, but continued at his impatient gesture. "It may assist in determining the fate of the ship that eluded my sensors."

"That's what I like to hear – positive thinking. OK, you find the ship. Trance, you keep working on finding out what this damn stuff is. Doyle, Harper, you're with me. Wherever Rhade is hiding, it looks like we're going to have to track him down the old fashioned way."

"Legwork," muttered Harper under his breath, as he followed the others off the bridge. "Great…"

-o-


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 8**

However bad he'd thought things were before, when the hood was finally pulled from his head to leave him blinking painfully against the bright lights pinning him in their merciless glare Rhade understood that it had all got a whole lot worse.

His ankles had been unbound before he'd been dragged from wherever they'd been keeping him, leading him to launch an automatic attempt at escape. But after so long tied up his legs didn't have the strength to deliver sufficiently impactful kicks, or to support him long enough to charge through the heard but unseen enemy and get away. And his unforgiving captors made sure he was repaid for his temerity tenfold.

All he'd been able to do after that was stumble along, half carried by a couple of iron-gripped hands clamped to his still secured arms, a lamb heading meekly to the slaughter for all that a tiny voice somewhere inside was screaming at him to fight back.

So now here he was, swaying unsteadily in the centre of a red-carpeted space, peering into the shadows beyond the pool of light as his eyes adjusted and not liking what he was seeing. Familiar faces stared intently back at him, expressions ranging from blandly watchful, through avariciously expectant, to downright vengeful.

Among them he recognised Denholm, whose 'The Destroyer' nickname he'd disproved so visibly, sharing a table with Absalom, who had failed to protect his black market venture from Rhade's incursion. Lunah and Bozim, who he and Doyle had played off against each other to such great effect a few months earlier, sat at opposite ends of the room, their glowering looks as much for their long-term enemy as for him. Even Thomas was there, his most recent 'employer' looking shabby and out of place in the – for Seefra - opulent surroundings. But his features were contorted by such hatred that he seemed to fit right in with the rest of them.

Like Marta, lounging nonchalantly in her chair, her relaxed stance belied by the cold anger burning in her eyes. Of course, she would be here, and with Balsen hovering anxiously in the background this would have to be the man's club - which would account for the furnishings. He could now see the padded couches in the curtained alcoves beyond his audience, and handcuffs, whips and other less recognisable accoutrements hanging from the walls, but they registered only fleetingly as he continued his survey of his surroundings.

He tried to tell himself he was looking for a way out, something he could use to try and stage another escape attempt, but he could dredge up no confidence in his ability to execute a plan even if he could come up with one. His mind, as if in sympathy with his current physical inadequacies, was fuzzy and uncertain of anything beyond the fact that he was no longer Telemachus Rhade - at least, not in any meaningful way. Drained of energy by the weight of the knowledge of what had been done to him, and with every one of the cuts and bruises his body had incurred vying for top billing in the pain stakes, he found himself unable to do anything but stand sullenly and await his fate.

He didn't have long to wait. "Welcome, one and all." The now well-known voice came out of the darkness, and he snapped his head round for his first look at the one who had taken him down. A dark-clad figure stepped forward, but the hat shading the face beneath denied him more than the gleam of teeth in a broad smile, and the glint of light from the oddly colourless eyes. "My name is Fargo. Thank you for coming – not that I thought any of you would miss the opportunity to exact retribution from this… man." The contempt in the final word was clear.

"I'd have to say I'm here more out of curiosity," drawled Absalom. "He killed three of my men when they tried to stop him destroying my business, and injured several more. I'd like to know how your people captured him."

"My people? Oh, I have no 'people' – the two louts who brought him in here are in Balsen's employ. I am merely a visitor, here on... let's say a scientific mission. And besides, it didn't need more than me to handle this piece of trash."

"A scientist?" snorted Bozim. "And you're trying to tell us you took him on alone?"

Fargo didn't reply, merely stepped behind Rhade and kicked him hard in the back of the leg, the unexpected blow forcing him to his knees with a bruising thud. He felt his hands being unshackled, but he lacked the ambition any more to take advantage of the temporary freedom, especially with the odds so badly stacked and no clear idea of the way out. Instead he remained there with bowed head while Fargo lifted one of his arms by the bare and bloodstained wrist.

"See these?" he said, indicating to the watching group the bone blades lying unnaturally flat along the forearm, before leaning back in again to taunt, "Come on, Nietzschean, think you're better than us? Give us a demonstration, then. Show us how your much-vaunted weapons work. "

"Go to hell," Rhade growled, raising a surly scowl as he looked up at the man he could now see standing in front of him. The skin of his face was luminously pale under the wide brim, eyes such a light blue that the pupils stood out starkly at their centre. It explained why he always seemed to be wearing a hat, at least outside – Seefra's suns would have made short work of burning him to a crisp. There was a distant familiarity in the features that evoked a fleeting sense of déjà vu, of someone he'd seen somewhere in his past life, but was too swiftly gone to grasp had he even cared to try.

"Still a hint of rebelliousness left, I see. No matter – it won't be there much longer." Fargo moved into an easy crouch, pulling down his long coat's collar to bare an expanse of throat. "OK, I'll make it easy for you. Go on, I dare you - use your unnatural assets, plunge them into my neck and teach me the error of challenging your superiority. You know you want to - I can see it in your eyes." He moved closer, a self-satisfied smirk twisting his lips. "Come on, Rhade – what are you waiting for? Show us all what you're made of."

Though he badly didn't want to give the man the satisfaction, Rhade was too mentally fragile to have any chance of stopping himself responding to the goading. He lurched forward with a roar, swinging his arms up and in towards Fargo's neck with bone blades leading. But, as in the alleyway, to his utter chagrin his blades refused the summons, remaining resolutely motionless against his forearms, and his momentary hesitation at this unlooked for failure allowed his enemy ample time to block his attack and launch one of his own.

Rhade knew he should have been able to dodge or absorb the blows easily – they weren't that fast or powerful. But his reactions seemed to have slowed to snail's pace, and each punch that landed sapped a little more of his willpower. His attempt at scrambling to his feet to gain himself some degree of dominance came to an unceremonious end when Fargo's leg-sweep dumped him flat on his back again, and from there on the outcome was inevitable. A couple of well-placed kicks to his already damaged ribs had him rolling away amidst a blaze of mind-numbing agony, and the next thing he knew he was lying dazed and helpless, arms held behind him and face pressed into the carpet.

As the unseen hands started to drag him roughly to his feet, he heard that damned superior voice drawl, "So, ladies and gentlemen, who wants the chance to finish him off? Or perhaps you'd prefer to prolong his suffering a while? Whatever – bid enough and you can do what you like. Shall we start at, say, 5,000?"

Finally if unsteadily upright, Rhade became very aware of the dozen gazes fixed on him, some thoughtful, some covetous, some carefully expressionless. But none of their owners seemed to want to be the first to speak.

"Oh, come on, people," urged Fargo silkily. "Think of the boost to your reputation, to your power base, to be known as the one who, against all the odds, took down the Nietzschean hard man."

"It might be worth 3,000 to turn him into dog food," offered Denholm. And with the ice broken, the bids started to come more quickly, each accompanied by another graphic description of what they'd like to do with him.

By the time it reached 20,000, though, the indignity of again being bartered like a side of salt beef had started a spark of nascent anger that collided with the already smouldering shame and despair at yet another defeat at this man's hands that was wrapping itself inexorably around his soul. Being Nietzschean was all about winning, physically and mentally, and it was crystal clear to him now that he was no longer capable of doing that. And true to his heritage and upbringing, if that time had come there was only one option left to him. To die in battle, defending what was left of his honour, was infinitely preferable to living with his disgrace, to merely surviving as a loser. All he needed to do was find a way to achieve that goal.

"Cowards!" he bellowed, the rawness of his tone cutting through the babble and leaving silence in its wake. "Belly-crawling desert vermin, all of you! If you wanted me, why didn't you just come and get me? But no, none of you had the guts to face me yourselves. You left it to someone else to do your dirty work, just like you do with everything else. Pathetic, spineless, worthless bloodsuckers that you are, living off the pain and misery of this damn place, off the misfortunes of others."

He paused briefly to draw breath, chest heaving and sweat trickling down his drawn face, dimly gratified to see he had their full – if somewhat stunned - attention. "You made me! If you didn't exist, I wouldn't have had to sink to the despicable depths I did, to descend to your levels just to survive. But you're all too stupid to understand that – so I guess I'll just have to give you a lesson!"

Summoning up his best wolf's head grin in a desperate show of the confident defiance he wished he were truly feeling inside, he threw himself bodily towards the nearest group of bidders. Crashing through Denholm and Absalom's table with a snarling roar, he even managed to get his hands on them and inflict some payback of his own, before the rest of the pack descended on him.

He tried to heave them off, arms and legs swinging indiscriminately at any available target, but they were too many and too incensed, driving him to the ground amidst the broken furniture in a welter of kicks and punches. Ignoring the instinct to curl up and protect himself he turned towards his attackers, gritting his teeth against the inevitably agonizing pain of breaking bones and splitting skin, and waiting for the end to come so he could finally find the peace he craved. "I'll be with you soon," he whispered silently in his head, conjuring up an image of a smiling Jillian, hand extended in welcome, as the torment faded and darkness started to descend around him.

But before he could reach out to her, he felt strong fingers grip his chin and he levered swelling eyelids open to see another far less appealing face hovering fuzzily above him. "Not so handsome now, are we?" Marta cooed, with a vicious gleam in her eye. "Or so high and mighty. No woman will ever look at you again with anything but revulsion – not even if you were the last man on the planet. And I'll be there every day to remind you of that fact. You're mine."

And as his mind struggled to grasp the fact he'd failed yet again, the pain surged through him once more and dragged him down into its fiery depths.

-o-o-o-


	9. Chapter 9

**Part 9**

"Well, what do you know? Seems like someone's having a party – with a mystery guest of honour and everything," Dylan reported as he re-joined his companions by their transport, dusting off his jacket and rubbing absently at his knuckles in a way that told them he'd used his fact-finding trip as an excuse to let off a little steam. "Guess our invitation got lost in the mail."

"Yeah, we heard the same thing," nodded Harper. "Don't think much of their taste in company, though – by the sound of it, it's the kind of gathering you're gonna need to be counting your fingers after every handshake!"

"But can we be sure it involves Rhade?" Typically Doyle was the one to question. "Even in his current frame of mind, I can't see him walking into something like that voluntarily, and I don't think it's common knowledge yet that he's been affected by this virus. His reputation would still stop most people trying to take him by force."

"Oh, there's one person out there who knows exactly what's going on with Rhade, so I'd say it's pretty much a safe bet," Hunt confirmed. "My source didn't mention our missing Nietzschean by name, but it was fairly obvious given the guest list - none of them are exactly members of his fan club. And I even managed to get him to give me the venue – he just needed the right persuasion."

"Which you were more than happy to provide, no doubt." The small mysterious smile that twitched the Captain's lips was sufficient answer to that, drawing an appreciative snigger from Harper. "So, what do we do now, boss?"

"Now? Break out your party clothes, people – you just signed up for Gatecrashers'R'Us!" said Dylan brightly.

He didn't reveal their destination, but Harper found himself becoming more and more uneasy as their journey progressed. It was a very familiar trip, almost identical to the one he and Rhade had taken the previous week, but it wasn't until they started walking up the very same alleyway that he could force himself to accept there might be a connection.

"Erm… boss?"

Dylan stopped and turned to look down at him. "Something wrong, Mr. Harper?"

"Oh no, no, nothing wrong, no. Only…" He hesitated a second, then ventured on. "This 'party' we're going to crash – it wouldn't by any small chance be happening in some sleazy kinky red light kinda dive, would it? Sort of like the one behind that big door up ahead?"

"Now, how would you know about that?" Eyes narrowing suspiciously, the Captain fixed Harper with an intent gaze that had him flinching away apprehensively as he stammered out his admission that he'd been here before, and that in fact this was where they'd had the run in with Marta that he'd regaled them all with the previous week.

"And I'm betting she was on the guest list, too," he finished.

"Another coincidence?" mused Dylan. "I don't think so… Let's go find out, shall we?"

He made short work of kicking open the club doors, forcelance at the ready to smooth their way past any welcoming committees. But it wasn't necessary.

"We're closed," came a creaky voice from beyond the narrow vestibule and they followed the source, coming to a halt just inside the windowless main room and looking round in varying degrees of surprise. The place was a mess – broken furniture littered the floor, torn drapes hung from their rails, and shattered glasses lay amidst the liquid pools of whatever they'd once held.

An old man stood in the middle of it all, leaning on a broom. "I said, we're closed," he repeated, glaring at them over half moon spectacles held together with tape. "Are you deaf? No, more likely blind, if you can't see there's going to be no fun had here tonight."

"Looks to me like someone's already had more than enough fun for one evening," Dylan said, stepping over the remains of a table and approaching the cleaner, who eyed him warily but didn't bother moving. "Sorry we missed it. So, what were they celebrating?"

The man shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I just get called in to clear up the mess. Never seen it quite this bad, though. Someone obviously got a bit carried away."

"Dylan, you should see this." Doyle's voice, coming from off to his right, and with a "Watch him, Harper," he went to join her.

Something darkly wet glistened amongst the clutter of debris she was crouching by, and he didn't really need to get as close as he did to know what it was. Blood, and rather too much of it for his liking.

"This doesn't look good," Doyle murmured. "If it's Rhade's we need to find him quickly."

Dylan didn't answer, but the look on his face as he rose to his feet and bore down on the old man was thunderous. He used both hands to grab him by the suddenly quivering shoulders and hold him still, as he brought his steely gaze down level with his. "You have two choices. I can turn you into another piece of trash and leave you for someone else to clear up, or you can tell me exactly what happened here."

The wizened face puckered up in fear, the broom dropping to the floor with a clatter. "But I don't know!" he protested tremulously. "I wasn't here."

"You better come up with something," Harper urged, moving in as well. "Believe me, he doesn't like to be disappointed."

Another glance at Dylan seemed to confirm that. "OK, OK… Balsen did say that some foreigner rented the place, and that a lot of people you really don't want to get to know better were here. Oh, and there was some sort of trophy up for grabs. But I don't know what or why."

"This… trophy – who won it?"

"Who wins everything in this town," he countered bitterly. "Marta, of course. But I hear this one cost her a pretty penny."

"Marta… well, what do you know." Harper looked up at Dylan as he released the cleaner and turned away. "The coincidences just keep piling up, don't they?"

But the Captain just walked towards the door without response, leaving his startled companions to hurry after him.

-o-

Time had passed, he knew, though he couldn't have said how long if his life depended on it. His consciousness wandered a universe of its own making, moving seemingly without effort from the searing heat of raging hell-like infernos to icy barren wastelands that mirrored his soul and back, and he had no option but to go along for the ride.

Odd sounds and sensations intruded, adding to the surreal nature of his existence. Voices raised in anger merged with dry warmth of the night air, whispered words of kindness became a cooling cloth soothing his burning skin, and then more anger, censure, punishment. The clank of chains trailed behind him wherever he roamed, even though he didn't feel their restraint. And the more he tried to understand it, the less sense it all made.

There was something he needed to remember, he was sure of that. But every time he dared to search for it in the chilly mists that enshrouded his mind, the fires flared up again and the pain returned. So in the end he just surrendered himself to the unknown, to an endless drift on the tide of his nightmares.

-o-o-o-


	10. Chapter 10

**Part 10**

It wasn't hard to find Marta's compound, even at night. The ramshackle collection of lean-to's and tents surrounding a two story central building clung to a hillside on the outskirts of town, near enough to command a good view of everything that went on there, but separated by a clear stretch of dusty land that made approaching unnoticed a challenge. That hadn't stopped Dylan, of course.

Ignoring Harper's grumbling complaints about the literal pitfalls of walking in barely starlit blackness, he'd led the others on a circuitous march, bringing them around the hill to a vantage point from which they could observe the whole camp unseen. And despite his haste to get them there, he was now taking what seemed to the engineer an inordinate amount of time just looking.

Only a few lights showed, not surprising at this late hour, though the distant hum of a generator indicated that there was power available for more. An occasional dark shape making its way between the habitations, and the odd unintelligible burst of raucous chatter from one or other of the canvas structures, told them there was life down there, but there was no obvious sign of the guards Dylan had been expecting. This fact seemed to displease him for some reason Harper couldn't fathom, his suggestion that they make the most of this lucky break to get in and out before anyone found them just sitting here on their butts being greeted by a silencing frown.

And that caution paid dividends a few minutes later when the doors of the main building opened, and several figures emerged. A tall female led the way – Marta, probably? - keeping pace with someone even taller, wearing a cloak and hat that made them impossible to identify. Another rather subservient man Harper tagged as Balsen slouched along behind, and the group was followed by two or three beefy men who spread out around them as they walked off towards a long low building on the far side of the compound.

"I wonder what they're up to," murmured Dylan, watching them pensively.

"What does it matter?" asked Harper, grimacing as he shifted uncomfortably on the hard ground, brushing dirt off his clothes. "They present us with a gift horse, and you want to be examining its tonsils? Let's just say thank you very much and go find our boy while they're otherwise occupied."

"Ah, but I'm a best of both worlds kind of guy, Harper, you know that. Which is why you're going to follow them, try and find out what they're doing, while Doyle and I look for Rhade."

And riding rough-shod over his engineer's expected protests, he led them both circumspectly down to the camp's outer boundary before sending him on his reluctant way with a whispered, "Stay in touch - and keep your head down!"

Making the deep shadows their closest friends, Dylan and Doyle reached the central building without mishap, slipping inside and along the entrance corridor before pausing in a handy doorway to take stock of their surroundings. The house seemed empty, no sounds intruding to give cause for concern, no movement to disturb the oddly fragrant air. But diffused light glowed from some unseen source around the corner ahead and, after sharing a 'shall we?' glance, they moved on towards it.

The illumination came from what had to be Marta's living quarters, probably the most luxurious set-up Dylan had seen since he'd arrived on the planet. Bright fabric hangings hid the peeling walls from view, soft cushions lay in welcoming mounds on the rugs covering the floor, and low tables held the remains of what had obviously been a good meal. Candles burning in mismatched holders gave off a heady scent, and the three glasses along with some empty bottles suggested that the recently departed group had been doing some celebrating.

"Someone's doing alright for herself," he murmured to his companion. She wasn't listening, though, her gaze roaming the space and settling on something resting in splendid isolation on a shelf on the far wall.

A few quick strides took her across the intervening space, lifting the worn leather gauntlet to show Dylan. "Looks like we're in the right place."

He came to join her, noticing as he did so the motley collection of items adorning other surfaces. The woman was obviously into taking trophies, with the Nietzschean as her latest victim - something that might play in his favour. "Let's just hope Rhade was still alive when she took it off him, and that she had to pay enough for him to want to keep him that way."

A sudden noise, like a quickly stifled intake of breath, coming from the direction of the room's second doorway had them both whirling round to face a potential threat, but there was no one in sight. In the passageway beyond, though, they found a young teenage girl pressed up against the wall, eyes wide in a terrified face, her cheek marred by a fresh bruise. Her clothes were mismatched and a little ragged at the edges, and from her demeanor Dylan subconsciously labeled her as a servant.

"It's alright," Dylan assured her earnestly, signaling Doyle to check ahead. "We're not going to hurt you. We're just looking for our friend, OK?"

The girl managed a tiny nervous nod, then raised a trembling hand to point towards the back of the house and whispered, "I heard. He's out there."

"That was a bit too easy – maybe a trap?" Doyle suggested quietly as Dylan joined her at the end of the passage, but after a long thoughtful look back at the unmoving teenager still gazing after them he shook his head.

"No, I don't think so. But let's go carefully, just in case."

-o-

On the far side of the complex, Harper was hunkered down behind a group of handy barrels, cursing the Captain under his breath. He'd had a couple of pretty close calls with the natives as he'd made his way alone through the quietening camp, and that was more than his rattled nerves felt able to cope with. Playing with combustible substances in his lab seemed a much safer proposition right now, and didn't require him to have eyes in the back of his head or a gun in his slightly shaky hand.

Voices on the other side of his protective barrier caught his attention, though, and he slid himself carefully to one end so he could get a view of the bunker – no better word, really, for the low but well reinforced building his quarry had disappeared into. A couple of Marta's goons had emerged, shepherded by Balsen, carrying a heavy crate with unusual markings which they dumped onto an already part-laden transport standing outside before retracing their steps.

Curiosity welled up in Harper at the sight, his unquenchable 'need to know' battling with the pure common sense of following Dylan's advice and keeping his head down. And before he knew what he was doing, he was crawling from cover and crabbing his way over to the limited shelter of the bunker's wall, his own voice in his head silently berating him for doing something so unnecessarily stupid.

"Seamus Zelazny Harper, if you get yourself killed I'm never ever speaking to you again!" he muttered, as he hooked an eye round the doorframe to check there was no one coming before pulling himself onto the transport. Levering up a corner of the crate's lid, he peered inside, his gaze widening when he saw the contents. "Well, what do you know…"

He didn't have time for any more investigation, though – the distant but fast-growing sounds of approaching company had him dropping back to the ground and diving for the safe haven of his trusty barrels again.

-o-

Slipping out through the rear entrance of Marta's HQ, Dylan allowed himself a brief moment of self-congratulation at finding his assessment of the girl's integrity had been correct. There was no one in sight, and no indication of anyone lying in wait for them in the relatively well lit walled-off area he and Doyle found themselves in.

But this wasn't like any back yard he'd ever seen before. The space was cluttered with unidentifiable junk, and where one might have expected to find a patio stood a row of three small cells – no more than cages, really, although they did at least have tarpaulin draped partially over them to offer their residents some protection from the elements.

And in one of them they found Rhade.

Without a word, Doyle snapped the new-looking padlock on the barred door with a single twist of her hand and pushed her way inside, Dylan ducking his head below roof level to follow her. The Nietzschean, though, seemed unaware of their arrival, remaining huddled on the straw-strewn floor, a heavy chain linking the shackle round his unclad ankle to a ringbolt in the back wall.

Closer up, they could see that someone had tried to clean him up a bit and provided some rudimentary first aid, but it was still obvious he was in a serious condition. Both eyes were blackened and puffy in his battered sweat-sheened face, and his nose was obviously broken. The skin of his naked torso and arms was darkly mottled with heavy bruising mingling with inflamed cuts and weeping grazes, and the catch that came with each shallow, fretful breath told of damaged ribs and the Gods only knew what other internal injuries.

Doyle sank smoothly to one knee beside him and rested a gentle hand on his forehead, looking up with shocked eyes. "He's burning up. I didn't think that was possible for a Nietzschean."

"It's not." Dylan didn't need to say more, his expression spoke for him. "We need to get him out of here and fast."

"And take him where? Dylan, he's in really bad shape – I don't think he'll survive the journey back to Seefra Town. Unless we can find somewhere safe to move him, to wait until one of us can go and pick up the shuttle, I don't know how we're going to get him up to Andromeda. And even then…" She shrugged helplessly.

Before he could answer, though, Rhade stirred weakly under her touch, trying to pull away but only succeeding in setting off spasms of pain that rippled visibly through him. Dylan crouched down too, gripping his friend's arm reassuringly while at the same time wincing inwardly at the sight of the raw rope marks circling each wrist. "It's OK, Telemachus, it's us," he soothed. "We're going to get you out of here."

Rhade struggled to focus on him through slitted eyes. "No, no time," he croaked. "Fargo… you have to stop him. He can't get away, can't take this back with him." He broke off as a coughing fit hijacked him, leaving him wheezing and panting for breath again.

"Fargo? Is he the one here with Marta? The one who did this to you?"

Nodding weakly, the Nietzschean reached to grab Dylan's shoulder in an attempt to haul himself to a sitting position, one that failed miserably. "They mean to finish us all," he gasped. "And it won't stop at Nietzscheans, whatever he says." He swallowed hard, struggling to cling onto his fading consciousness long enough to finish. But Hunt had to lean close to try and catch his final words before he lost that battle.

A stereo crackle from both their com units served as prelude to Harper's hushed but clearly excited tones. "Hey, have you found Rhade yet? If not, you better hurry - you're gonna want to be out of there real soon. Marta and her goons have waved bye bye to their buddy - and just wait until you hear what they gave him as a going away present! No idea what he's going to do with it all, but it's…"

"What?" Dylan was the one to answer, mind still distracted with trying to make sense of what he'd heard of Rhade's last unfinished whisper. 'It's the way of the temp…'? Temp what? With an effort, though, he tried to focus on Harper. "He's already gone? Which way? Can you follow him? And where's Marta now?"

"She's heading back your way, which is why you want to be somewhere else, like now! And unless I can sprout wings in about the next 10 seconds, there's no way I'm keeping tabs on the guy. He took off into the desert on a transport – true, a pretty old and rusty one, but still fast enough to outrun me. By the time we all get back to the RV – which, by the way, in case I didn't already mention, I really think we should be doing really soon – he'll be long gone."

"Damn!" The single word carried a wealth of emotion.

"Captain, I have some news for you." Andromeda had obviously been monitoring their frequencies, and now joined the conversation.

"Good or bad? Because if it's bad, I don't want to hear it."

"I would classify it as good. I believe I have located the ship that came through the Route of Ages." She paused as if waiting for comment, but when none came she went on. "I was able to use the temporal signature to refine my scans, and pinpoint an anomaly in the Southern desert. The signal is very faint, and has an odd overlay which leads me to believe the ship has some kind of cloaking device engaged."

"That's gotta be where he's heading," Harper put in, and the others had to agree. But that just added to the logistical nightmare the whole thing was becoming, made more critical by their pressing need to be moving. Dylan stared down at the now comatose Rhade, weighing up the urgency of getting him medical attention against the growing desire to prevent this Fargo from getting away with whatever it was he was up to. Something was telling him that the first of these goals might ultimately depend on the other, and he was hoping that inspiration would strike quickly to help him work out how to achieve them both. In the meantime though…

"OK Harper, get going – we'll see you at the RV," he said decisively, and then to Doyle, "Let's get him out of here." Spinning his forcelance in his hand, he targeted the chain linking Rhade to the wall and burnt through it like a hot knife through butter.

"It could kill him," she warned grimly, her words overlapping the engineer's fervent, "About time!"

"We have no choice. If we leave him here he'll die for sure – at least this way he has a chance."

To which logic she had to acquiesce, joining the Captain in levering the tall Nietzschean to the vertical, draping one unresponsive arm over her shoulder and wrapping her own round the sweat-slick skin of his waist. "Which way?" she asked, trying to ignore his soft moans of pain as they manoeuvred him awkwardly out of the cage. "We can't go back through the house."

"Over here," came a soft call, and they realised that the girl had followed them out and was beckoning from across the yard. She led them through the teetering piles of metallic scrap to a small door in the wall, pulling it open and watching them half-carry, half-drag their burden through. Dylan paused as he passed her, though, to give her a searching look.

"Why? Why are you helping us?"

She shrugged absently, her strangely intense eyes never leaving what could be seen of Rhade's face beneath the curtain of lank black hair. "Mother was angry that I wanted to fix him. But he was nice – nicer than her other pets. He shouldn't die in a cage."

Dylan threw Doyle a look, eyebrows raised, seeing his surprise reflected. Mother? But there was no time for further questions. From the other side of the house came the obvious sounds of people coming their way and the girl looked nervously back over her shoulder, fingers lifting automatically to her bruised cheek. "You'd better go," she said urgently. "You don't want to be here when she arrives."

"What about you? Will you be alright?" But Dylan's concern fell on deaf ears – the girl had already turned away, drifting like a ghost towards the house. And at Doyle's urging they did the same but in the opposite direction, moving through the rear of the camp as quickly and quietly as their circumstances allowed, all the time keeping an ear open for signs their presence had been discovered.

They'd managed to reach the broken ground at the foot of the hill before it came, shouts mingling with the raucous shriek of a klaxon that had lights coming on all over the compound. As one, they lunged for the cover of a pile of boulders, lowering the Nietzschean to the ground and sliding down beside him. "Oh hell…" Dylan muttered, panting a little from the exertion. "That doesn't sound good."

"Neither does he," pointed out Doyle, reaching to check Rhade's pulse and finding it racing erratically. "I'm not sure he's not going to make it back to the transport, Dylan, let alone all the way to town." And the ragged gasp that accompanied each intake of air gave credence to her point.

Hunt risked a quick glance round the rocks, grateful that for the moment they were still alone. "Andromeda," he said into his com unit, "is there any way you can maybe interface with the Maru's on-board systems, fly her remotely? We could really use her down here."

"Ask nicely, and you shall receive."

The disembodied voice coming over the com wasn't Andromeda's, though, and it was with a slightly stunned expression that Dylan asked, "Beka? Is that you? But… how?"

"The one and only," she replied brightly. "Sounds like you need your butts pulling out of the fire again – that will be another one you owe me!"

"But the virus had you out cold. What…?"

"Oh, I was. Boy, I was sleeping for all three galaxies there for a while. But then I just woke up feeling fine – go figure! Trance said something about me only being the template, not the finished product. You know, from anyone else I'd take that as an insult, but well, this is Trance so…" They didn't need to see her to know she was grinning affectionately.

"Well, you don't know how good it is to hear your voice. Where are you?"

"Almost with you." She was suddenly all business. "Got a landing site marked out on the backside of that hill – can you get there, or do you need me closer?"

"The closer the better – we're about to have company, and Rhade's in no condition to be carrying too much further."

"That bad?"

"And then some..." No point in beating around the bush.

"OK. Just get clear of the camp so I can isolate you on my scanners, then - I'll come find you." And true to her word she did, the Maru dropping out of the night sky ahead of them as they laboured out into the desert, the yells of their pursuers gaining volume with each step they took. A couple of minutes later they'd collected Harper from their original rendezvous, his delight at seeing Beka in fighting fettle again doing much to alleviate the battering his nerves had suffered on his danger-wrought journey back there.

"So, where now?" asked Beka after they'd joined her on the flight deck. "Get Rhade back to Andromeda?"

"Yes," agreed Dylan. "But we need to make a short detour first…"

-o-o-o-


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 11**

Trundling at a less than satisfactory pace across the barren desert wasteland, Fargo wiped sweat from his face and thought longingly of his climate-controlled ship. Even at night this place was uncomfortably hot and he could only be grateful he wasn't having to make this journey under the glare of Seefra's suns.

He was quite content with the business he'd transacted here, especially his piece-by-piece destruction of the pathetic Nietzschean. And though he'd have liked to stay around to see it finished, he really had no desire to spend any more time than absolutely necessary amongst the idiots and losers who made up the local population.

But he'd done what he came for – as a trial run for their universe-changing brainchild, things really couldn't have gone any better. Now he just had to repair the damage incurred by his vessel's jump systems on the way in so he could get himself home, share the good news and be there to bask in the well-earned glory destined to come his way once they'd successfully implemented their master plan.

A glance at the datapad he had strapped to his wrist told him he was nearly at his destination, a good thing given that the dawn was making its first tentative foray over the horizon. So he slowed the rattling and decrepit transport – the only one that witch Marta had been prepared to sell him, and for a totally exorbitant price at that – to walking pace while he got his bearings.

She'd driven a hard bargain on the parts he needed to fix the ship, though he had to admit himself lucky to find anyone with enough suitable components to retrofit with his systems. It had amused him to let her think she was the one coming out on top on the deal, but she didn't realise he had no need of money where he was going. He'd only staged the auction to raise enough funds to buy what he needed, and it tickled his sense of symmetry to think that Marta was in effect paying for her own goods.

Everything at the site looked as he remembered leaving it – the undulating terrain gave no indication of the ship he knew was sitting somewhere amid the scattered boulders up ahead, and he smiled his approval that the cloaking system had held up. Not that there was much likelihood of anyone stumbling over it way out here. And with its construction, there was no chance of it being picked up on scans, not with the level of technology available in this system.

Apart from the Andromeda, of course, though he was still more than confident that in the improbable event they did put sufficient pieces together to know what to search for, even her efforts would be fruitless. He'd have quite liked a look round that historic symbol of a glorious past. Shame the one who commanded her had such a warped sense of duty, squandering the immense opportunity afforded him to restore the proper order of things. The idea of the self-aggrandising Hunt, whose actions in the past had had such an impact on his own future life, left to moulder here in this pocket universe forever was oddly gratifying.

Mind full of splendidly vengeful thoughts, he brought the transport to a juddering halt at the edge of a large hollow in the sand that closer up was obviously too regularly shaped to be natural. He absently punched a code into the datapad to open the access port, only realising as he hefted the first box of his hard-bartered-for cargo off the transport and turned towards it that the cloak had also dropped.

"So that's what it looks like," came a voice from far too close, and he swung round to face it so fast he almost tripped over his feet. "A little battered, isn't it, Mr. Harper? I wonder if our 'friend' could use an engineer."

Rising from his hiding place behind the ship's tail, Dylan moved warily to a point where he could cover both Fargo and the open doorway, noting how quickly the man masked his obvious shock under a mantle of extreme confidence despite still being encumbered by the box. Interesting that he hadn't dropped it despite the surprise, he thought – whatever was inside must be important.

In the slowly growing light he saw Harper's head pop up over a jumble of rocks beyond the other man, his expression a mixture of desire and envy as he gazed avidly at the now visible vessel, reminding Dylan vaguely of a small boy confronted with a new toy he desperately wanted but couldn't get his hands on. He could understand his interest – the ship was of a truly impressive design. But at this moment he would much rather his companion kept his focus on their adversary.

Speaking of whom… "Captain Hunt," the man responded calmly. "What a coincidence – I was just thinking about you. I'd like to say it's an honour to finally meet you, but… well, there's nothing honourable about a man who betrays his race and destroys their best hope for enlightenment and peace."

"Aw shucks, you say the nicest things," Dylan smiled, though there was no humour behind it. "Shame I have no idea what you're talking about."

"No, I imagine you don't," Fargo agreed, face bland under his hat brim. "As I understand it, you've never been able to accept that sometimes the greater good demands a step outside the moral comfort zone. That's why you'll never achieve the true greatness of the…" He obviously thought better of what he was about to say, instead finishing, "…of others. You allow your heart to dictate and that makes you weak."

"Gotta admit he's got a point there, boss," piped up Harper, finally managing to drag his attention away from the ship. "Not the weak bit, of course, that goes without saying. But the caring thing does kinda get in the way of a good profit sometimes."

He didn't even rate a glance from Fargo, who said nonchalantly, "Ah, the infamous Seamus Harper," and then in the next breath asked, "Can I put this down?" Without waiting for an answer he stooped to carefully set the box on the ground, tapping another code into the datapad under the camouflage of noisily dusting off his cloak as he rose. It also served to disguise the faint hiss of the door closing from those around him.

"In-famous?" Harper queried in disbelief, lured out into the open by this unexpected turn in the conversation. "Surely you mean famous? Or maybe legendary would be more like it? Illustrious? Eminent?"

The response was a snort of laughter. "Hardly. How does it feel to have gone down in history as the one who condemned hundreds of thousands of people to the ghastliest imaginable death through his ineptitude?"

"Inept…?" he spluttered. "What the hell do you…?"

But Dylan didn't let him finish, pinning Fargo with a hard glare. "You know what? I've heard enough. So here's the thing - whatever it is you've done to Rhade, you're going to fix it. Otherwise you're going to be spending a lot more time out here – and you really don't look the sunbathing type."

Another smirk. "Help that Nietzschean scum? I really don't think so." But the eyes narrowed watchfully as if waiting for Dylan to make a move to take him.

None came – at least not from that direction. Hunt just shook his head sadly. "That was the wrong answer." And out of nowhere came a forcelance bolt that hit the man squarely in the chest, sending him tumbling to a senseless heap on the ground.

"Good shot, Doyle," Dylan said absently as the android came to join them from where she'd been listening, though Harper didn't seem so happy.

"What the hell was all that 'ineptitude' crap about? I mean, that's got me freaking out a bit, you know? You could have waited until I got him to explain…"

"We'll add it to the list," the Captain promised, as he fished out his com unit. "Beka, are you out there? Got a little cargo job for you."

"My pleasure," she responded promptly. "And if you've killed the son of a bitch, you can have this one for free." Her tone was grim, telling Dylan she'd got a good look at Rhade's condition when she'd delivered him to Trance's care.

A condition that, from the necessarily brief report he'd received as they'd waited for Fargo to arrive, was worsening by the moment. Initial tests had seemed to indicate that the Nietzschean's bio-engineering was no longer doing anything to support his immune system, and that in fact was now actively working against him. As Trance had put it, it was like his own body was attacking him from the inside out, a potentially deadly combination when added to the injuries he'd sustained.

No time to waste, then. "OK, let's get this thing back to Andromeda," he said, waving a hand in a gesture that took in both Fargo and his ship without specifying which he meant, "see what secrets we can prise out of it."

But it was Harper who seemed to take most pleasure from that prospect.

-o-o-o-


	12. Chapter 12

**Part 12**

"Captain? Are you aware that Beka has been attempting to contact you for the past half hour?" Andromeda's voice broke into the quiet of Dylan's office, and he looked up from his desk monitor long enough to acknowledge her.

"Yes, thanks – I heard her," he said, eyes returning to the unchanging image before him. He'd been tuning out the door chime's regular intrusions while he tried to decide how best to handle the situation they were now facing, a situation that was making him feel uncomfortably on the defensive. And that was something he hated.

On the screen in front of him their prisoner sat unmoving, just as he'd been almost since he'd come round in the spartan quarters they'd secured him in. The man had made a brief tour of the room, testing the door and checking out the furnishings. Then he'd settled himself down on the single straight-backed chair and, to all intents and purposes, gone back to sleep again.

At least that was what it looked like, though as he still had his eyes open Dylan had decided it was more likely he was just trying to wait them out, hoping to gain a psychological advantage by compelling them to make the initial move. And although rationally he knew it was childish, he was having difficulty getting past the overwhelming desire to force the bastard break first.

Problem was, while Fargo seemed content to play the waiting game, time was definitely not something Dylan could afford to waste.

Trance's distracted manner during recent visits to Med Deck had done as much to convey the seriousness of Rhade's condition as the erratic readings on the various monitors he was attached to. The cuts and bruising stood out starkly against his pale skin, seeming much worse now he was cleaned up than they had than before, and his face was gaunt and etched with pain despite everything she'd done to try and repair the damage. Never before thinking of him as anything other than the big, robust man he was, it was a shock to see how frail and insubstantial he now looked.

They all knew what a tenacious fighter their comrade was when he had the motivation, and usually never more so than with his very survival at stake. But Dylan understood without asking what Trance feared most – that this time the battle had been lost before they'd even got him back on board, that survival was no longer an option for him even if he could find the strength to fight for it.

So they'd just have to do it for him – by finding an antidote for the virus that was destroying him. And that ball was solidly in Hunt's court.

Or maybe it was somewhere in the air between him and Harper, because Fargo's ship had to hold something that would help. If his engineer could ever find a way into it, that was.

He'd dropped by the hanger bay Beka had deposited the vessel in on his way back from Med Deck, and found Harper almost incoherent with delight. And it wasn't just that they had what he'd declared had to be the coolest space ship ever just sitting there on their deck – he seemed almost more excited by the contents of the crates Fargo had been transporting.

"Will they help you get that door open?" Dylan had demanded, which had elicited a glib "No, but I have my best team working on that." The thumb jerked in the direction of Doyle and Andromeda's holographic self, apparently communing with the datapad they'd retrieved from the captive, was an unnecessary confirmation of who he was referring to.

"I knew Marta had great stuff like this hidden away somewhere," Harper had gone on, before the Captain could make any caustic comments about three heads being better than two. "I just couldn't find out where or work out how to get my hands on it. And here it is, dropped right into my lap like it was Christmas or something!" A brief sideways glance and he'd corrected himself, "I mean, our laps, of course. All for one, one for all, and all that…"

Queries as to quite where he'd heard all this, and how exactly this windfall was going to benefit them had, though, been met with a slick change of subject and a slightly guilty look that should have rung all kinds of warning bells. But in the circumstances Dylan let it pass in favour of other more important issues.

Leaning in close enough to make his engineer cringe away anxiously, he'd said firmly, "Never mind, it doesn't matter now. What does matter is that I need to get into that ship... No, scratch that. I need you to get into that ship, find whatever it is this guy used to infect Rhade, and how to reverse it. So unless gloating over this… this stuff is directly contributing to that, stop it – now - and go help them. Understood?"

To which Harper had nodded so hard his head was in danger of falling off, and scurried away. And with nothing more to contribute there, Dylan had returned to his office for some peace and quiet in which to think.

There were so many unanswered questions. Like, who was Fargo? Had he really come from the future? If so, what had brought him here, and how did it involve Nietzscheans? And why had making them understand they had to stop the man leaving the planet been so important to Rhade, even in his weakened state?

Dylan didn't like mysteries, especially when being on the wrong side of one left him feeling less than in control of the situation. So he'd been sitting here, trying to pull all the pieces together and getting precisely nowhere.

"Captain?" Andromeda said again, at the same instant the door chime went off for maybe the tenth time in so many minutes, and with a sigh he sat back in his chair.

"OK, Andromeda, let her in."

"Well, about time!" Beka snapped as she swept into the room. "What the hell have you been doing in here? Painting your nails? Why aren't you down there taking that guy apart?"

"Because I think that's what he wants me to do – or at least, he wants me to try. And I'm not in the mood yet to give him even an inch. Not until I have a few more cards of my own to play."

"What? You're joking, right? He's locked up in a cell on your ship, and you have the key - what bigger card do you need?!"

He sighed. "It's not as simple as that. He's not as simple as that. And I don't think charging in like a bull in a china shop, with nothing but empty threats, is going to get us what we need."

Pulling a face, she dropped into the seat across the desk from him and folded her arms. "Maybe not, but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better!! The asshole deserves to pay for…" She subsided without finishing.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he agreed. And they sat in silence a few moments, both aware they were probably seeing the same image in their heads but not feeling the need to elaborate.

The beep of the com system intruded, followed by a succinct, "Boss? We're in."

"So, let's go see if we can stack that deck a little in our favour," Dylan said. And as one they rose and headed in the direction of the caller.

-o-

Down in the quiet dimness of Med Deck, awareness began to insinuate itself slowly into the turmoil of his unconscious existence. And although he thought he knew where he was, could sense familiarity in his unseen surroundings, somehow it only served to add new dimensions to the terrifying underworld he was hiding in, instead of offering comfort.

A constant presence lingered out there, the warmth of its concern almost smothering in its intensity. But he registered the coming and going of others too, felt the probing intrusion of their emotions wash around him, merging with the physical pain now lurking at the edge of his existence in an attempt to impose something he found infinitely more agonizing.

The burden of life.

They dangled their most tantalising lures before him, promising hope and joy, peace and salvation, not understanding that he already knew the truth. That he'd already made his decision.

Because he'd felt death stalking him, creeping ever closer through the debris cluttering his mind. And it was death he sought now.

An end to the struggle, to the torment and heartache. A return to everything he held dearest, everyone and everything he'd ever loved and lost.

And all he had to do was wait, just a little longer.

-o-o-o-


	13. Chapter 13

**Part 13**

Fargo didn't move a muscle as Dylan stepped into his cell, giving no sign he'd even registered his arrival. Whether this was designed to throw the Captain off balance or not, he didn't know – but then again, he didn't really care either. He wasn't about to let it.

Though they'd found the correct sequence to get the ship's port open, it hadn't provided the instant cornucopia of answers he'd been hoping for. The inside of the vessel was all smooth curving bulkheads and utilitarian grey flooring, the walls inset with flat matt-surfaced screens that repelled all immediate attempts to bring them to life.

The compact cockpit, its banked control panels equally dark and lifeless, somehow still contrived to look spacious, but the living quarters to the rear would probably have tested a monk's tolerance for austerity. There were no personal items anywhere; no clothing, no carelessly abandoned datapads, no handy hyposprays of antidote – nothing to help explain the man and his true intentions. Or to offer hope for Rhade.

Of course, Harper had sworn on the bones of his sainted (though apparently, according to Beka, cremated) mother that he'd be up close and personal with the core systems in less time than it took Perosian mayflies to mate. But after half an hour, during which Dylan's increasingly impatient questions and seeming inability to keep out of the engineer's way in the confined space had obviously got seriously on everyone's nerves, everything still remained resolutely unresponsive. So he'd done them all a favour and taken himself away.

With no help forthcoming from that direction, and time being of the essence, he'd finally decided he had nothing to lose by going straight to the horse's mouth. And here he was.

"Sitting comfortably?" he asked from the entrance, waiting until the man blinked and looked his way before moving fully inside and letting the door hiss closed behind him. The broad hat and black cloak were gone, and with them much of the air of mystery that had surrounded their prisoner. There was nothing out of the ordinary about his dusty shirt and pants, and the close-cropped silvery blonde fuzz covering his strangely rounded head could not completely disguise the prematurely receding hairline.

But the face that greeted him was smooth-skinned and ageless, the almost colourless eyes hooded and watchful in contrast to the jovial tone that greeted him with, "Ah, Captain, finally. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me."

Dylan pulled another chair round so he could straddle it, resting his folded arms on its back as he stared passively back. "Oh, I think you know me better than that," he said pleasantly.

"Perhaps better than you know yourself," Fargo confirmed. "But then I've had the benefit of studying your life and times in some detail. Want to know what I've learned?"

"Not particularly. No, I'm more interested in what the hell you've been doing here."

"Straight to the point, I see. Well, I suppose that's only to be expected given your track record." The thin lips twisted into a derisive smile. "I assume the aberration is still hanging on to his wretched existence, then? Don't worry, he'll be out of our misery soon, along with all his kind."

"I see the Nietzscheans haven't lost their knack for winning friends and influencing people in your time," Dylan murmured, pleased to see a quickly suppressed look of surprise send a ripple through Fargo's composure. "Oh, come now. You didn't really expect we wouldn't find out, did you? Particularly once we got a good look inside that ship of yours."

"Bravo, Captain." A round of sardonic handclapping punctuated the words. "Though as you're here, and still obviously with no inkling of the momentous nature of my mission, it would appear your ragtag bunch of misfits has failed to unlock its secrets. Not that I'd expect anything else from them."

Dylan shrugged. "Secrets are over-rated anyway," he responded casually, not wanting to give anything away until he had to, "and definitely no fun unless you have someone to share them with. So why don't you just tell me what you've done to Rhade."

Long seconds went by, Fargo looking thoughtfully at him while obviously weighing up the pros and cons of doing what he asked. Dylan returned his gaze, waiting with an outward calmness at odds with how he was really feeling inside. But that patience was rewarded as, with a small gesture that clearly conveyed his view that it could do no harm now, the man spoke again.

"Our scientists call it the Delilah Complex, apparently a reference to some archaic Earth biblical tale or other," he said. "But all you need to know is that it's a genetically engineered virus that targets only Nietzschean DNA, then strips their bioengineered defences and leaves them with the same frailties as normal humans. But because of their ridiculous inbred need to prove their superiority at all times, that's more than enough to have them at each other's throats. And if one of their supposed betters doesn't finish them off, their own sense of inadequacy will drive them to do it themselves anyway." A smug smile spread across his pale face. "Simple in its genius, I'm sure you'll agree."

There was no response, though, apart from a sceptically raised eyebrow, and the smile slipped just a little at the lack of the obviously expected approbation. "Well, that just goes to prove everything I've heard about you was true. You watched the Nietzscheans rampage across the Known Worlds leaving devastation in their tracks, and did nothing to stop them. Worse, you actively worked against our one true hope for genetic salvation, the one man prepared to make a stand for human genetic purity."

And suddenly the pieces clicked into place in Dylan's mind as he recalled Rhade's last words and put them together with the all too familiar phrases and sentiments he was hearing. "Oh, for God's sake, you have to be kidding me. You're a Templar? How the hell…?"

-o-

"Woo hoo! Take a look at this – am I good or am I good?"

Up on the mystery ship, Beka turned at Harper's triumphant crow to see one of the wall panels flickering into life, the static resolving to a familiar symbol that had the two longer-term members of the crew looking at each other open-mouthed.

"But… isn't that…?" stammered Harper.

"Yeah," Beka agreed. "Oh, that's just perfect."

"But how…? Why…?"

"If you'd stop gabbing and get working again, perhaps we'd find out!" she said explosively.

Without another word, he went back to tapping feverishly into his workpad.

-o-

Delighted by his audience-of-one's reaction, Fargo beamed. "At last, Captain, at last you understand. And now you know, you'll have to admit we've won. There's no way anyone can stop us."

Not prepared to admit anything of the sort, Dylan raised a hand. "Whoa, let's back up there a moment, shall we?" he asked in bemusement. "The Templars still exist in the future? Please don't tell me Stark somehow managed to regenerate again. I thought the Magog took care of him once and for all."

"Oh, the path of righteousness never wavers, even with the dimming of the light that guides us. Despite the disastrous events on that moon, despite our desperate losses, we have come back even stronger." Now he'd started talking, Fargo seemed unable to stop – the curse of the over-confident, Dylan thought, but was happy to let him ramble on for now to give himself time to absorb the shock of what he was being told.

"After the failure of the time bridge initiative, the remnants of the Templars and the families of those who perished there sought out shelter, somewhere to weather the Magog storm. Many more died, but the teachings of the Patriarch lived on through their children and their children's children. We've been steadily rebuilding over time, gaining members and support against the monstrous plague of Nietzscheans and other races who seek power through unfair genetic advantage that's sweeping the universe. And now we have both the infrastructure and the technology to do something about it, through Delilah."

Dylan couldn't let that go by. "But why play games like this? You've proved you can isolate their DNA, target them. So why not create a virus that just kills them and be done with it? It's what the Patriarch would have done, were he still here - what he tried to use the Genites to do."

"Yes, and would have succeeded had you not betrayed your heritage once again. I'm curious, Captain - what is this weakness that inhabits you? That blinds you to the true nature of the Nietzschean and their like, to allow them to serve beside you, hold your trust? They will not rest until humankind is reduced to the level of insects, something to be swatted aside, stepped upon without compunction. And they must be stopped!"

He punctuated his statement by punching a fist into his other hand. "But not through genocide – that would be too overt, too obvious, too much for the weak stomachs and minds of those in the ruling council of my time who have allowed our status in the greater scheme of the universe to be so eroded. That's the beauty of Delilah, though – with that there'll be no comeback on us. Our enemies will simply destroy themselves for us." The colourless eyes glistened snake-like as he leant towards Dylan to finish triumphantly, "Then the natural order of things can resume!"

-o-

"You what…?! Did you see that? What the…!" Pointing a wavering finger at the images playing on the monitor, Harper flashed an indignant glance Beka's way only to find her gazing at it in stunned delight.

"Oh my," she grinned. "I know you've managed to aggravate a lot of people in the past, Harper, but I always thought it was a natural side-effect of meeting you. Seems like you've found a way to make the future hate you sight unseen - that's pretty good going, even for you."

Harper scowled, "Oh, ha ha, very funny I don't think!" then went back to glaring at the screen. "Where do they get off saying this stuff? It's all a pack of lies – whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty!?"

"Really? All lies?" Beka arched an eyebrow his way, enjoying this primo opportunity to wind the engineer up.

"Yes! Well, the way they're telling it, anyway – that's not how it happened! Or that! And that's just plain insulting…" Harper's increasingly incoherent protests rose in pitch until they almost drowned out the complacent tones of the documentary-style commentary that accompanied the pictures they were watching.

Unmoved by his complaints, his companion simply leant over and upped the volume – this stuff was dynamite and she didn't want to miss a moment!

-o-

Several decks below, exasperated by the one-track-minded verbiage he'd been hearing, Dylan shook his head as he broke in before Fargo could get started again. "Yeah, yeah, enough already. I get the picture – humans good, Nietzscheans bad. But none of this explains why you're here, in Seefra."

This was greeted with a disbelieving snort. "But surely that's obvious, isn't it? Even to your limited intellect. Like the good citizens we are, we thought it prudent to field test our creation, somewhere we could make sure there was no risk to humankind in general. And I had the most marvellous idea! I'd read about you and your crew being stranded here, and it seemed the ideal test site."

There was a small pause, before the man went on musingly, "Actually I'd hoped I might get here a few months earlier, and render the exercise unnecessary. If I could have killed Drago Musevni – or his target - before he could collect and leave with the means to create his abhorrent race in the first place, our job would have been done."

"Believe me, tried that," Hunt interjected. "But trying to alter time – past or future - rarely delivers the end result you expect."

Fargo pursed his lips, only a small sign of irritation but more than he'd shown so far. "Well, it didn't matter – everything was still perfect for what I wanted. A small, closed environment so the virus couldn't spread far if it didn't work, a limited population of predominantly losers, one Nietzschean and one control subject in the shape of Beka Valentine – expendable, all. Oh, and the personal pleasure of watching you and your crew, those responsible for the loss of the Patriarch, suffer too should the experiment fail." That thought evoked a wistful smile. "Admittedly it took no small effort to unearth the secret to the Route of Ages and necessitated some forceful persuasion to wrest it from its keepers. But once I had that, it was just a matter of a hop across time. And here I am!"

"And here you're going to stay," Dylan said grimly. "Not such a perfect plan now, is it? Now you're trapped here with us, you're never going to have the chance to spread this thing anywhere."

Fargo chuckled softly as he settled back on his chair and folded his arms. "You just don't get it, do you? And I was expecting so much more from the renowned Dylan Hunt."

"Well, I'm sorry to be such a disappointment to you. Guess you're going to have to explain it to me."

"You can't stop this, even by keeping me here. My comrades won't let my failure to report back stand in their way – there's far too much at stake."

"But… you said you needed to field test the virus, to be certain it worked. Surely they won't go ahead with it untried…"

Fargo shook his head, almost sadly. "You're not listening to me. I said this was the perfect site – not the only one. There are others which will suffice, and when I don't return one of them will be chosen. We will prevail, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop us."

Although Dylan had no real reason to love the Nietzschean race as a whole, he still felt sickened and angered by the casual talk of their destruction. It was genocide, whichever hand delivered the killing blows, and that was something that simply couldn't be condoned. Worse, Rhade was right – it wouldn't stop at the Nietzscheans.

"Don't be so sure," he declared firmly, leaning forward to put his face inches from his prisoner's so there could be no mistaking his intent. "People have said that to me before, and lived to regret it. I will find a way."

"Stuck here? I really don't think so." The man's expression was infuriatingly self-satisfied, and Dylan toyed briefly with the idea of simply pinning him to the wall and punching his lights out. But he had to reluctantly acknowledge to himself that, apart from making him feel a lot better, it wouldn't really help matters much.

"So, any other revelations you'd like to share with me?" he asked caustically.

There was another longer pause, but in the end Fargo just shook his head. "No, I've already given you enough clues – you're going to have to work the rest out yourself." And with that he yawned delicately and closed his eyes.

Clinging desperately to what was left of his temper, and albeit hating the position he was being forced into, Dylan had little option but to get up and silently leave.

-o-o-o-


	14. Chapter 14

**Part 14**

"There you are! Where did you disappear off to?" Beka's voice rang down the corridor, stopping Dylan in his tracks. He turned to watch as she bounded towards him, face split by a huge grin. "Never mind – you are never going to guess what this Fargo guy is!"

"A Templar?" he responded, offering a small smile to temper the disappointment he knew he was inflicting.

Her expression froze for a second, the grin fading to be replaced by a pout. "I hate it when you do that. Fargo talked, huh? Harper's going to be seriously pissed off – he thought he'd cracked the case."

"He's into the ship's systems?" Dylan asked with interest, automatically adjusting his course towards the hanger bay. "What else has he found?"

"Well…" Beka said doubtfully, "he'll probably kill me if I don't let him tell you himself…" But her hesitation was brief as, with a mischievous look, she continued, "But what the hell - why should he have all the fun? He's managed to get into the databanks! Only the non-secure areas as yet - something about the core being secured by passwords with some…" She frowned a moment in thought. "…interlocking algorithmic thingamajig that even Andromeda is struggling with."

And she went on to describe the sort of Templar 'bible' they'd come across, a quasi-religious-come-military collection of think-pieces, training documentaries and regulatory commandments. There was also a genealogical database and a glorified version of the history of the movement going back to their foundation by the original Admiral Stark that had yielded some startling gems according to Beka.

"This guy Fargo is directly descended from one of the Templars who were killed when the Magog came through the time bridge. And I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear they have Harper as the main villain of the piece, for miscalculating where – or maybe when - to send the thing. Now, what did they call him? Oh right… 'Harper the Bungler'?"

Her grin broadened at that, and it even lifted Dylan's mood some despite the problems preying on his mind. Bungler? Boy, Harper must be apoplectic about it!

"Mind you, you don't get off scot-free," she continued, hard pushed to conceal her smirk. "Apparently you and the Nietzschean dog Rhade are actually to blame for the death of the revered Patriarch, as well as the slaughter of all those brave Templars."

That got his attention.

"I know, pretty shocking, huh? It appears that you succumbed to your own panic and ran away without even trying to fix what Harper had done. So of course it was the Patriarch who, despite his horrific injuries, heroically turned the machine on itself and destroyed the bridge before he died, etcetera, etcetera." She threw him a sly look. "Now, that's definitely not the way you told it – want to change your story any?"

Dylan's jaw dropped at this. "Oh, come on! That was us! All the other guys were either dead – including their precious Patriarch – or were too busy worrying about their own skins to care. So of course we tried to fix it. Once we got Harper focussed enough to tell us how, we blew the damn thing up! And how come Rommie doesn't get included in this – she was there too!!"

Beka shrugged, stifling a snort of amusement. "Hey, don't blame me - you can't argue with the history books. If that's what it says, it has to be true, right?"

"We'll see about that!" Dylan scowled as he spun on his heel and strode away from her. Though his destination wasn't clear, the odds weren't good for anyone who got in his way.

She let him get halfway to the corner before she called softly after him. "Hey, want to know what else we found?" Something in her tone made him slow and look back, eyebrow raised in query. Her smile brought him to a halt, hope flaring in his eyes at her nod in response to his unspoken question. "It was only a trace of the virus, but Trance is working on it." she said, adding quietly to his departing back, "Let's hope it's not too little too late…"

-o-

Lost in a numbing blanket of endless darkness, the few shining threads still connecting him to all that lay behind stretched almost to breaking point, he waited eagerly for them to snap so he could finally be free. Somewhere on the other side of the void, he knew, lay the release and peace he craved, and his soul ached to be there.

Another silvery lifeline gave way under the strain, pinging off into the blackness, the reaction propelling him a little further towards his goal. And somewhere up ahead he was sure he detected a growing luminous glow, a beacon that called out to him in the voices of his loved ones. Drawing on the last remaining nugget of strength he'd kept buried deep inside, ready for just such a moment, he used their encouragement to will himself forward.

His focus was so complete that the disturbance at the edge of the shrinking sphere of his awareness almost didn't register. But an ominous rumbling forced him to spare it a quick glance, one that showed him a boiling mass of cloud rent by jagged flashes of light, and he felt an immediate sense of foreboding at its threatening presence. With a growl of frustration he re-doubled his efforts to reach the warmth he could still feel emanating from ahead.

Even when the first lightning bolts caught him with their prickling caresses, he swatted them away as one would an irritating insect and kept going. But the storm was too fast, too strong, the roaring thunder rolling across the empty space to rattle his concentration, the searing shock of each fiery lash more stunningly intense than the last, until he no longer knew which way lay sanctuary. And in no time he was swept up in its tossing, tumbling mass.

Jolt after jolt of electric energy assaulted his nerve endings, agonizing in a way he'd never before experienced. On and on it went, and the only coherent thought he could form was that this was his punishment for all the wrongs he'd done, an eternal hell instead of the heaven he'd come so close to achieving.

And he howled out his pain and soul-deep loss as, too tired to fight any more, he abandoned himself to its inexorable embrace.

-o-

"Is it working?" Dylan asked quietly.

Trance took a long time answering, her luminous eyes flicking from her patient to the readouts on the panels in front of her and back again. Eventually she looked across at the Captain and said hesitantly, "I think so."

He took a breath, but she pre-empted his anxiety-driven demand for something more concrete by going on, "The indications are that the nanobots have been reactivated and that his bio-engineered defences have been… perhaps re-booted would be a good description."

"But?" Dylan prompted. It seemed that there was always a but…

"But… his injuries were severe, and he's dangerously weak. The shock of this change could kill him, even if the physical damage isn't just too grave to be repaired."

She paused, reaching to lay a gentle hand on Rhade's bare shoulder as a shudder ran through him, the first outward sign of the struggle she could sense raging within him. The skin was hot and dry, too hot for her liking, and his battered features showed an underlying tension inconsistent with the deeply unconscious state he was in.

"Then there's his mental state," she went on, almost apologetically. "I felt his acceptance of death - more than that, his desire for it. I can't say how he'll react to what's happening to him now, if he's even aware of it. He may not want to accept the alternative it offers. But I guess time will tell."

Hunt stood silently, staring intently down at the sleeping Nietzschean as if trying to will him back to health. But after a minute or so he sighed and raised his gaze to meet hers again. "Maybe he just needs reminding what he'd be missing. Stay with him, Trance. Talk to him. I need to go catch up with Harper, work out what we're going to do about our unwelcome guest, but I'll send one of the others up to spell you."

He didn't see her nod of agreement, bending down to whisper something in Rhade's ear that was too soft for her to hear. Then, putting his mind to other problems, he turned and left.

-o-o-o-


	15. Chapter 15

**Part 15**

Jacked into the portable workstation he'd positioned just outside Fargo's ship, Harper stood with eyes closed and an expression of such pleasurable excitement playing across his face that he was close to drooling. Whatever he was seeing in the virtual reality realm he was inhabiting was obviously pleasing him greatly.

But that certainly didn't stop Doyle thumping him heartily in the ribs as she came up beside him. "You had so better not be playing Space Doxies in there," she said sweetly as he jerked back to the here and now, his gaze tracking a little dazedly her way.

"What did you go do that for?" he spluttered. "I was just getting to the good stuff!"

She snorted. "That's exactly what it looked like! Don't you think your reputation has taken enough of a hammering today?"

"Don't you start," he scowled. "I told you it wasn't true, any of it! Well, OK, apart from the bit where I built the bridge – but that was a brilliant piece of engineering, hitting exactly where and when it was meant to, which given the quality of the tools and resources was nothing short of pure genius."

"Oh, I got the full story from Andromeda – including the part where you promised Dylan you wouldn't finish it…"

Harper shuffled his feet a little sheepishly. "Aw, come on Doyle – haven't you ever wanted to do something just to see if you can? Even though you know you probably shouldn't?" He gave her a wheedling look, but in the face of her lack of reaction he managed to answer his own question. "What am I saying? You can do anything you like and get away with it!"

"Yes, and if you don't have something more than history lessons to show for the past hour or so, you're going to be finding out first hand what I'd like to do to you!"

"Well, if I hadn't been so rudely interrupted," he retorted indignantly, "I was about to persuade Daisy to let me in on her innermost secrets."

"Daisy?" Harper jumped as Beka materialised beside them, her entrance to the hanger bay having gone unnoticed. "Got a new girlfriend, Harper?"

"In a manner of speaking," he grinned, waving a hand towards the silvery bulk behind him. "Meet 'Herald of Days of Purity and Light'."

"What the hell kind of name is that for a ship?" asked Beka incredulously.

Harper shrugged. "This is the Templars we're talking about – they always did use ten words where one would do. Me, I'm calling her Daisy for short. And she's a real hottie! Not as hot as you or Andromeda, of course," he assured Doyle earnestly. "That goes without saying."

The look Doyle shared with the warship's hologram showed what they thought of that, but the engineer continued blithely, "Anyway, she played hard to get to begin with, but once I got past her natural shyness and enticed her out into the open, she was putty in my hands. So, if you'll excuse me…"

"Do you think we should let him go back in there without a chaperone?" Beka asked Doyle dryly, but if she'd hoped to get a rise out of Harper she was disappointed. His attention had been drawn to the bay doors where Dylan had just come in, and he scurried over to meet him.

"Boss! Boss, where you been? How's the big guy doing? Hey, you won't believe what we found out…"

The Captain raised a hand to stop him. "Yes, I know – Templar, time bridge, heroic patriarch, Harper the Bungler…" Point made, he finished, "Rhade's hanging in there, but I need you to give me something new."

Harper threw a sour glance over his shoulder in Beka's direction and hissed, "Blabbermouth!" at her. But she just grinned smugly and slid away out of sight behind the ship. "Gotta say it still hurts, you know," he went on, "after all I went through to get the damn thing to work for them. Ungrateful bastards."

"We share your pain," Dylan assured him, straight-faced, and Harper spared him a suspicious look before charging on regardless.

"OK, so you wanna know what I've got on this baby? She's an absolute beaut! Some kind of lobidium alloy skin that I've never seen before, an ellipsoid quantum propulsion system that's been barely theoretically possible up to now, bio-neural nets with processing speeds down in the picoseconds – God, if I can just figure out how it all hangs together enough to incorporate some of it into Andromeda…"

His eyes glazed over briefly as he considered the infinite possibilities inherent in that prospect. But a little strategic throat clearing got him focussed again, and he started spilling out a whole stream more information on the wonder-ship's capabilities – light-absorbing outer sensors to generate the cloak, miniaturised fuel cells that packed the punch of an old time nuclear power plant, self-managing memory banks linking directly with all other Templar ships or bases within range to ensure a hive-like sharing of all knowledge and programming updates, the most compact…

"Wait, what was that last one? No, better still, show me." Dylan pushed past him, striding over to Harper's workstation to extract the VR leads and apply the gel-coated contacts to his temples.

Ten minutes later they emerged from the virtual tour, Harper for once keeping his thoughts to himself as he warily watched Hunt standing beside him, absently peeling the pads off again in pensive silence. It seemed like a long time before the taller man's eyes re-focussed his way, and though he wasn't really sure what he was expecting the question that followed probably wasn't it.

"Can you get it flying again?"

"Can I?" Harper blustered. "I'm trying hard not to take offence here, because you know there's nothing I can't make work. Well, OK, before you say it, yes, the Tesseract transporter wasn't quite perfect, and there was that little blip with the thingummy on Pargon Four, but there were extenuating circumstances that you really need to take into account. Any other time..."

"What about this time?" Dylan interrupted what was promising to be another Harper ramble.

"This time? Oh, should be a piece of cake, especially as Fargo gave us a head start." The engineer gestured to the crates littering the bay, spilling a variety of components onto the deck. "It's pretty obvious he bought a lot of this stuff 'cos he thought he could use it for repairs, so I'll probably be able to do the same. It'd be a shame, though – you don't know how long I've been after those Vareon flux superconverter elements, and I'd kinda got them ear-marked for Andromeda. And some of these other parts – well, don't get me started on how I could use them or I'm gonna need to go take a cold shower!"

He paused as a thought struck him, frowning up at the Captain to ask, "So, you wanna tell me why you want to get Daisy flying? 'Cos bearing in mind the fact that ship isn't big enough to hold us all, I gotta say it'd get seriously on my nerves if I thought you were planning a little solo escape trip!"

Dylan sighed impatiently, then raised a forefinger and solemnly licked it. "Cross my heart and hope to die," he promised as he drew intersecting lines in the air over the left side of his chest. "If – no, when I get out of here, I promise the rest of you will be right there with me. Now, can you fix it – yes or no?"

Harper gave him a searching look, before shrugging his acceptance. "OK, you're the Captain. So long as you're really sure that's the way you want it – yes, I can do it."

It hadn't slipped his attention that Dylan had not actually answered his question, but knowing the man as he did he didn't think pushing him when he was in this kind of mood was going to help. He gave him a few beats to respond, but once again the other man was staring broodingly into the middle distance, apparently lost in thought.

As it seemed his curiosity was destined to remain unquenched on that particular issue, at least for now, he decided to try a different tack. "So, Andromeda said you spent a bit of time with our guest - managed to beat anything out of the slimeball? Cos I'm betting with a bit of sweet talking I could get Daisy to spill the beans on why he's really here."

"No need – he likes the sound of his own voice so much, he told me everything," Hunt smiled humourlessly.

"Everything?" Harper echoed in amazement. "He's obviously never watched any old Earth movies – doesn't he know the bad guys who start bragging about how clever they've been before they deliver their coup de grace always die in the final reel?"

"Well, maybe not everything – but enough for me to know he's got to be stopped."

"But… I thought we'd done that, hadn't we?" The engineer's confusion was clear. "Stopped him getting away with what he did to Rhade and Beka? I mean, he's in our brig – if that isn't stopping him, what is?"

"I'm not convinced that isn't exactly what he wants," Dylan murmured, casting a somewhat furtive look around the hanger as if to check no-one else was in earshot. Satisfied they were alone, he went on quietly, "So, here's what I think we should do…"

-o-

He wasn't sure what it was that first percolated through to him in the small dark space he'd squeezed into to escape the storm. Maybe it was the faintest tendrils of light pushing their way into the blackness as if seeking to chase his demons away. Or perhaps the almost imperceptible heat he began to feel radiating through the protective cocoon of his hiding place, like the first rays of sun warming the frozen earth as spring arrives.

Whatever, it was enough to tell him that something was out there looking for him, something different to the savage tempest he'd fled. Different even from the fevered imaginings that had plagued him while he cowered there, the phantom voices that whispered to him, in turn cajoling, encouraging, demanding, even one that told him firmly he was not to die. Voices he felt to be familiar but that he still dared not believe.

Somehow, though, he sensed benevolence behind this ominously lurking presence, felt its desire to help not harm – though that could have just been wishful thinking. But he was so tired of running, so tired of being afraid, that he allowed himself to be lured out into the open to face it.

In place of the cold unforgiving void there was brightness and warmth, and he raised his face towards its source to savour its caress on his icy skin. Its pull became stronger now that it had found him, lifting him upwards, and he was unable to resist, even when the first twinges of pain started up their insidious stabbing again. By the time he reached the surface he was hurting everywhere and would have given almost anything to be back in the darkness again, but a soft greeting – strangely calming – distracted him from his misery.

"Welcome back, Telemachus."

With a struggle he forced apart eyelids seemingly glued together, but all he could see through watering eyes was the hot brightness he'd followed up from the depths. He blinked uncertainly a few times and the golden glow resolved itself into the more recognisable form of Trance, smiling serenely down at him.

The words, the questions and reassurances he tried to force out in response remained locked behind teeth immutably clenched against the waves of agony washing around him, but she seemed to understand. Leaning closer she whispered that it was OK, the pain was a good sign but would pass in time, that everything would be all right now he'd found his way back. "Sleep now," she told him, resting a warm hand on his forehead. "We'll be here when you wake." And with a sigh he let his eyes drift close again and slid back into the twilight.

-o-o-o-


	16. Chapter 16

**Part 16**

It had all been so easy, just confirming Fargo's long-held opinion that Hunt and his people were completely unworthy of the glowing reputation they'd somehow managed to garner in some corners of the Three Galaxies.

From the moment the Captain had turned up in his cell, bragging about the fact his idiot engineer had finally managed to get the 'Herald of Days of Purity and Light' operational again, he'd known he was going to escape. It had been the news he'd been waiting for, though he knew he'd disguised his pleasure at hearing it completely.

That hadn't been Hunt's only attempt at a bombshell, trying to convince him that they'd found a way to cure the aberration, which was a somewhat less pleasing notion – particularly when it became obvious they were intending an ignominious and permanent return to the hellhole planet below for their unwanted guest. If he'd needed any additional impetus to get away, the thought of the reaction he was likely to get from Marta and the others should the Nietzschean reappear in full fighting fettle would have done the trick. But it wasn't necessary - he'd been more than ready to take the first opportunity that presented itself to leave.

So, the second Hunt turned his back to open the cell door again he'd made his move, leaping up to grab the man round the neck. There'd been a struggle, as was to be expected, but it had been fairly short-lived as he'd increased pressure on the windpipe beneath his hands, at the same time slamming his victim's head against the bulkhead hard enough that he felt him sag suddenly against him.

The weapon had been a welcome bonus – not a forcelance, he was slightly surprised to note now he had the time to think about it. But the pistol had been effective enough in clearing his passage to his ship, despite the efforts of both the whore Valentine and the bimbo android to prevent him reaching the hanger bay, and they'd both paid the price for getting in his way.

That had left only the snivelling Harper to deal with, but true to the little man's inveterate cowardice he'd needed only the most minor persuasion to part with the security codes to release Andromeda's bay doors. Despite past transgressions, he'd proved to be really too pathetic to bother executing, and the idea that he might be taken along as a hostage was gone almost before it was born – the constant babbling was just too irritating to take for longer than a few minutes, and in any case it wasn't necessary. With the ship's codes in his possession there wasn't anything they could do to stop him achieving his goal.

And here he was, with the Route of Ages in his sights, leaving the Andromeda and what remained of her crew behind to rot! Oh, how good it was going to be to get home to his own time, and the hero's welcome he'd earned…

-o-

"Captain? Captain, are you all right?" Andromeda's voice, Dylan realised, coming distantly through the fog in his head and the blare of the alarms, and with a groan he pushed himself up to a sitting position and leant back against a convenient bulkhead.

"I will be once you turn that racket off," he assured the hologram hovering beside him, and was rewarded by having the ship plunge back into silence again. "Thank you. OK, so give me a status update."

She did so in her normal succinct fashion – Fargo and his vessel approaching the Route of Ages having escaped her hanger bay, Trance still with Rhade in medbay, Harper at large in the corridors, Beka down but alive, Doyle down…

He was on his feet before she could finish, cursing furiously as he bolted from the room in search of his crew, his headache instantly forgotten. She reappeared in front of him at intervals in response to his shouted demands for more background as well as directions, guiding him until he swung the final corner to find his engineer crouched over an apparently comatose Beka.

"Is she…?" Dylan panted out, his horror turning to relief when Harper moved aside to reveal that she was already coming round.

"She'll be OK – but you might want to give her a bit more room. I got a feeling she's going to be pretty pissed off with you for letting Fargo get your gun like that! Lucky it was only set to stun, eh?"

"Indeed," Dylan agreed soberly, before asking, "And Doyle?"

Harper nodded along the corridor behind him. "Down there – lucky shot fritzed her auxiliary neural processor, but she's already… Hey!"

He found himself dumped unceremoniously on his butt as Beka flailed her way to full consciousness, struggling to sit up and ignoring suggestions she might be better taking it slowly.

"What the hell…? Where did the snake-eyed bastard go? Tell me he didn't get away!"

Dylan threw Harper a glance which got nothing but a shrug in response.

"What?" demanded Beka suspiciously, looking from one to the other with narrowed eyes. "What's going on? How did he get out of that cell? More to the point, where did he get the gun?"

"You're not pinning that on me!" Harper retorted indignantly. "First I knew of it was when the guy nailed me to the bulkhead by my throat and threatened to take my head off if I didn't give him the command codes to over-ride hanger bay security."

"Which you did, of course! You and your jello backbone…"

"I resent that! I can be brave when it matters," the engineer sulked. "But in this case it didn't – so yeah, as it happens, I gave him codes. Not the right ones, of course. Made them up on the spur of the moment – and pretty good they were too, good enough to fool him - but what the hell? Andromeda was going to let him out anyway, so…"

Beka's expression went from angry to confused in split seconds, something that might have been cause for hilarity had any of them been in a laughing mood, but Harper went on oblivious. "I did have a very nasty moment there when I thought he was going to insist on taking me along for the ride, but luckily I managed to charm him out of that idea. I don't think the future is ready for someone of my IQ and charisma, and besides, he obviously hasn't been paying too much attention to his personal hygiene recently, and Daisy is a pretty small ship, so..." He wrinkled his nose suggestively before grinning slyly Hunt's way. "Looks like things didn't go so smoothly on your end, though, boss."

"Wait a second…" Beka interrupted with a frown, saving the Captain's blushes from an admission that the lump forming on his forehead where Fargo had rammed him against the wall hadn't exactly been in the script. "Andromeda let him out? What… why?!" She fixed Dylan with a stare that could have blistered paint. "Out with it, buster – what have you and the boy wonder been up to?"

"Ah well, you see…" he replied, gingerly rubbing at his bruised brow, "just keeping Fargo here wasn't going to stop them – he made it clear that whether he returned to his own time or not, his Templar friends would still go ahead with their plan to release their Delilah virus. And Rhade was right – it wouldn't have stopped at destroying the Nietzscheans. I couldn't let them get away with genocide on that scale without at least trying to prevent it."

"Now, why does this not surprise me?" A rhetorical question, presumably, so Dylan ignored it and went on to explain about how the Templars' interlinked and self-managing systems constantly and automatically updated any other 'family' databanks within range, sharing new knowledge and file modifications as if by osmosis without the need for human intervention.

"OK…" she said slowly, as she took this in, "so…"

"So," butted in Harper excitedly, unable to contain himself, "I made a few tiny but critical changes to the virus formula, as well as to Fargo's log files. If anyone happens to check, it should look like he made them himself after he ran his trials here. And…"

Beka returned the favour, a grin starting to spread across her face. "And as soon as Daisy gets back to her own space and time, she's going to start transmitting it to all her buddy Templar ships and bases, telling them this is the right version to be using?"

"That's the general idea," agreed Dylan, acknowledging her appreciative 'Nice!' with a small smile of his own.

Andromeda chose that moment to announce that Fargo had entered the Route of Ages and was no longer on her scanners, news that didn't seem to sit well with Beka. Hunt watched her climb to her feet, his pleased expression fading to slight apprehension as she stepped up close and jabbed him fiercely in the chest with a finger. "So why am I only hearing about this now? Why the hell didn't you tell me what you were planning?"

"Come on, Beka, think about it - this had to look real. You and Doyle had to react the way you did and really try to stop him. Fargo may have an inflated ego, but he's not stupid – he needed to really believe he was getting away over your best efforts."

That didn't seem to placate her much. "Are you trying to say I can't act? And Harper can?!"

"No! Well, not exactly," which drew a dirty look from his other companion, one he avoided as he went on. "It was just very important that Fargo had no reason at all to suspect this was a set up, otherwise he'd be double checking everything once he got back on board his ship. We can't have him finding out what we've done until it's way too late – if ever! And I did make sure the only gun he could lay his hands on could only fire a low stun charge, whatever setting he put it on."

Beka shook her head in exasperation. "That's not the point. Just like always, you took a hell of a risk with our lives for something that may not even work, and for the sake of what? A bunch of people we'll never know in a future we'll never see? What would have happened if he'd decided to space us all while we were out cold? Or to just break your neck once he'd got the drop on you?"

"Oh, Fargo has far too high an opinion of his own abilities. Once I'd gone down he wasn't going to bother checking whether I was really out or not, and I don't think meting out punishment to victims who aren't awake to appreciate his supposed superiority really does it for him. Besides, Andromeda had our backs, didn't you?" he asked the still loitering hologram, getting a somewhat smug smile of assent in response.

"Well, you'd better hope your little trick works," Beka snorted, "because if it doesn't the smug prick will probably decide to come back, dish out a little more punishment, and next time he might not be so accommodating. But for now I guess all you have to worry about is explaining to Rhade why you let the guy who almost killed him escape without exacting a little payback on his behalf." She paused as a thought obviously occurred to her. "Which reminds me – before I was so rudely interrupted, I was looking for you. Trance asked me to tell you he's awake."

Dylan's spirits were visibly raised by hearing that and with a hurried demand to Harper that he get Doyle back on her feet as soon as possible, he headed off in the direction of Medbay with Beka in tow.

"Well done Harper, great job Harper, thanks for almost getting killed just to save the Nietzschean race, Harper…" Muttering under his breath, the engineer turned away, jumping back slightly as he found himself unexpectedly face to face with a politely smiling Andromeda. "Geez, don't sneak up on me like that!" he said fervently, slapping a hand to his chest. "You're gonna give me a heart attack!"

"Your cardiac rate is well within acceptable parameters," she advised him civilly.

"Figure of speech," he sighed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta Doyle-doll to resurrect. At least she appreciates me. Well... kinda."

And walking straight through her shimmering form, he headed for the still unmoving android.

-o-o-o-


	17. Chapter 17

**Part 17**

Deep in the quiet dimness of the observation lounge, Rhade heard the doors hiss softly open behind him without being able to summon up the interest to turn and see who it was. Instead he continued to sit, staring absently out at the golden dome of the planet hanging in the view screen ahead of him, determined to cling to his solitude as long as he could.

So much had happened recently he needed to work through, so many changes to try and come to terms with, but he knew that was only going to happen if he got some space and time to do it his own way. And that wasn't something he was finding it easy to come by.

This wasn't exactly where he'd intended ending up when he'd made his bid for freedom from Med Deck. Frustrated by the claustrophobic surroundings, and everyone's well meaning but nonetheless invasive desire to know exactly how and what he was feeling, he'd taken the opportunity to slip away while the watchful Trance's attention was briefly focused elsewhere.

Vague thoughts of heading planet-side had crossed his mind, though in reality just reaching his own on-board quarters would probably have been a more realistic aim. But in the event he'd been forced to settle for the nearest available resting place when his legs suddenly decided they really weren't about to carry him any further.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there – at least long enough for muscles as yet unready for physical exertion to cease their spasmodic trembling, for which he had to be grateful. Impatient as he was for everything to be back to normal, he was discovering the hard way that he was going to need every ounce of the patience Trance had urged him to seek when she'd first explained what was happening to him.

"Trust in this, Telemachus," she'd told him earnestly. "Everything will be as it was. But it's going to take time - you can't rush it." And, as with so many things past, she'd been proved right.

The first couple of days, while his body learnt to heal itself again, had passed in a blur of all-encompassing pain and sensory confusion. Sleep had been his only refuge and, to his embarrassment, there'd been times when it had been so hard to find his way there he'd come close to begging Trance to put him under so he could escape it all. Somehow she'd seemed to know, though, her gentle attentiveness and soothing presence always on hand to help him through the worst of it.

Even when the overwhelming side effects of his re-generating biogenetics had subsided, he was still left with the throbbing ache of freshly knitting bones and deep-bruised flesh, something that he knew could be with him for days to come. Or at least until he regained his tolerance for such bodily discomforts, which he was praying would be soon.

Adding to his misery was the way his senses had been fluctuating so wildly. One minute he had to strain to hear sounds, the next he was practically deafened by them. His vision would blur, then become so sharp it made his head hurt. And suddenly intensifying smells came from nowhere to assail his nasal passages, bringing tears to his eyes with their power. Trance had assured him this would all settle down once his metabolism had found its proper balance again, but even now he was still getting the occasional crossed signal.

But beyond the physical manifestations of his recent experiences lurked the mental fallout from everything that he'd gone through, and that was proving even harder to handle.

He knew he should have died. He'd expected to die, had come to accept it as the best he could hope for. And because he could still vividly recall the warmth and love he'd felt waiting for him on the other side, he was unsure whether or not to be glad for Trance's intervention. In fact he really didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling about any of it. It was as if his emotions had taken such a battering that they'd become numb, unable to register anything beyond the bare minimum to keep him functioning.

Some part of him thought he should be consumed with rage at everyone and everything – at Fargo for using and abusing him, at Dylan for letting the man get away unpunished, at Marta and her cronies for their vindictiveness, at whatever universe existed in the future that allowed the Templars to thrive and hatch their vicious virus… But all he really felt was empty and alone, despite the almost constant presence of one or other of his companions.

Speaking of which… Although there'd been nothing overt to indicate the presence of anyone else in the big room since the doors had closed again, he still knew that someone was there - well, providing his senses weren't playing tricks on him again, that was. He gave fleeting thought as to which of them it would be this time, but only got as far as discarding Harper from his mental list - he'd never have been able to keep quiet this long - before deciding he really wasn't in the mood for guessing games.

"Come out, come out, whoever you are," he murmured softly, hearing the words trickle away into the space behind him.

With an inward sigh, Beka straightened from where she'd been slouching against the wall near the door. She'd come in here with the intention of herding their truant Nietzschean back to the security of Medbay, but something had brought her to a halt in the heavy shadows just inside the room. Maybe it was the intensity of his expression, the rigidity of his face as he sat staring straight ahead of him, giving no indication he'd even heard her entry. Or the faint glisten of what might have looked suspiciously like tears if she hadn't known Nietzscheans didn't cry. Whatever it was, she'd remained where she was, finding herself observing him with more objectivity than she'd perhaps allowed herself over the previous week or so.

She hadn't expected to go undetected this long, but it had given her the time to note the dark rings circling his eyes, and the gauntness of features barely disguised by his straggling facial hair. The way he was sitting, hunched slightly forward with rounded shoulders and arms wrapped loosely across his midriff, told her his damaged ribs were bothering him, and he'd had her wincing in sympathy as an inadvertently awkward movement or two caught him unawares.

Even under the loose tunic and pants he was wearing it was clear he'd lost weight, paring down his normal solid muscularity to a leaner outline that would take some work to reverse. That he still tired easily was obvious, but she'd have taken bets that wouldn't stop him pushing himself to regain every bit of what Fargo's weapon had taken from him – and probably far sooner than he should.

Well, the old Rhade would. The current one she wasn't so sure about – not yet anyway. Perhaps it was time she did something about that.

Rhade turned his head just enough to see her step into the wash of soft light reflecting off the planet, then looked away quickly before she could register his surprise. He wasn't sure who he'd been expecting, but he'd probably have given the longest odds on it being her.

Things had been different up until a few days ago. To begin with, for some reason, she'd seemed to take what had been done to him even more personally than Rhade himself, which he thought was probably carrying the whole Matriarch thing a little far.

It could have been guilt that she'd been off-planet when it happened, anger at being used as a guinea pig herself, or frustration that she'd been denied the chance to exact any of her own particular brand of reprisal. Whatever it was, though, he'd found her hanging around Medbay almost every time he'd dragged open heavy eyes.

She'd always had an excuse for being there, however flimsy, and kept her concern carefully hidden under a continuous stream of banter that he'd had neither the energy nor wit to counter. He could only be grateful she hadn't tried getting inside his head. She'd left that to Dylan and Trance, seeming content just to be on hand to reassure herself of his physical recovery, but once he'd started to feel well enough to come back at her on some of her jibes, she'd perversely backed off again. He hadn't seen her in a few days, and though he'd rather have eaten glass than admit it, things had been the duller for her absence.

Yet here she was now, standing with arms folded and head slightly on one side as she grinned mischievously down at him.

"Did Trance send you to find me?" he asked, casting another sideways glance her way. "There was no need – I'm not planning on doing anything rash."

Beka shrugged. "Oh, I wasn't bothered myself, but you know how she frets – doesn't think you're well enough to be up and about yet."

"Well, she's probably right," he agreed soberly. "But that's my choice to make. I'll learn from my own mistakes. Or not."

"As always?"

He inclined his own head in acknowledgement with the ghost of a smile, and she took that as an invitation to join him on the long couch, hoping that as he'd initiated the conversation he'd keep talking. But the silence drew out, extending to fill the large room like a living presence, and in the end she was compelled to break it.

"So… you wanna to tell me why you're not up in Command, chewing Dylan out for letting the bastard go without giving you a chance to take a pop at him?"

So much for not wanting to get into his mind, he thought bitterly. But then Beka never could leave well enough alone if she didn't understand something, like an itch that had to be scratched. He realised she'd probably been loitering when the Captain had finally brought himself to admit how and why he'd let Fargo go freely back to his own time, which meant she'd been privy to his reaction to the news. Or to be more precise, the lack of it.

Where they'd probably been expecting a burst of initial unbridled outrage that could be tempered into understanding of Dylan's motives, approval for his methods, absolution for his failure to honour what at the time could have been construed as a dying comrade's final wish, all he got was… well, nothing, really, apart from the kind of look that indicated his audience couldn't raise the enthusiasm to care. For those as emotionally driven as most of his crew mates, that was apparently harder to grasp than if Rhade had punched him out for his trouble.

He had no better answer for her than he'd had for any of the others, but he could tell from the way she was looking at him that she wasn't going to let him get away with his usual glower in response. So, with a careful shrug, he said, "What's the point? Fargo's long gone – nothing I can do about it now."

"But doesn't it piss you off," she demanded insistently, leaning towards him. "I mean, really really piss you off that even stranded in here…" Her expansive gesture took in the Seefran planetary chain stretching away into the distance, "we're still getting picked on for things that happened months ago out in the real world? Things that weren't even our fault?" When he didn't reply she went on, "You know, I've about had it with people coming along, using me, us, for whatever suits their purposes, and I can't believe it doesn't make you just as angry."

He turned to face her, ignoring the twinge of protest from his ribs. "What do you want me to say?" he retorted, trying to suppress the burst of irritation rising through him at her persistence. "That I'd have preferred my opportunity for vengeance over the chance of saving my race in the future? No, never mind – you all seem to think you know more about how I should be feeling than I do. So, why don't you just tell me what you want to hear, so we can get this over with, OK?"

With a sigh she sat back again and folded her arms. "I just want you to be honest, that's all. Fargo did his level best to destroy you, and when he'd done with you he handed over what was left to Marta to finish off. If anyone had done that to another member of your Pride you'd have been itching to track them down and avenge it. I don't understand why you're just sitting around here like it never happened."

"And you suddenly know so much about me?" he snorted with a hint of contempt. "You may be the Matriarch, we may spring from your DNA, but that doesn't make you one of us. I will honour you as the spiritual mother of my race, but I'm the only Nietzschean here, so don't try and tell me what I should or shouldn't be doing." His words were emphasised by the finger he stabbed her way, the action causing his sleeve to fall back to reveal not only the purpling scars on his wrist, but also the flexing boneblades that clearly demonstrated his roused temper.

"Yes!" she agreed forcefully, reaching to grab his hand. Catching his eyes with hers she used them to draw his attention down to his forearm. "Yes, you are. Despite everything they tried to do to you, whatever the possible outcomes, you're still Nietzschean. A real, live, honest-to-goodness, kick-ass Nietzschean. And did I mention the alive bit, something I'd have to say we're all pretty pleased about despite your apparent ingratitude? So, isn't it about time you started acting that way?"

There was no reply, not in words anyway, but the dark gaze that lifted to meet hers again seemed to hold a new and speculative light, as if that thought simply hadn't occurred to him. She was denied the opportunity to follow up, though, as Doyle's level tones suddenly filled the room. "Rhade? Rhade, I know you're down there. If you know what's good for you, you'll get back up here before Trance finds you out of bed. Otherwise she'll send Dylan to get you – and you know that's going to hurt!"

He slid a hopeful glance Beka's way, but got only a shrug accompanied by a bright smile in return. "Oh no, no point looking at me - you're on your own there!" She stood and tugged on the hand she was still holding to start him rising to his feet, whispering conspiratorially, "Give me a bit of notice the next time you plan an escape, though, and I'll have the Maru fired up and ready to go. Seefra 9, maybe? They wouldn't find you there."

"With the ion trail your bucket of bolts lays down, a blind man could track it," he growled with a mock scowl. "So nowhere's safe."

Beka laughed as she turned and walked towards the door. "I'll take that as a thank you," she grinned over her shoulder. "And you're welcome."

Struggling to prevent a reciprocal smile reaching his lips until she was out of sight, he headed more slowly in her wake, head bowed in thought. It would never do to let her know it, but she was right. However strong the lure of what he'd seen and felt in his dreams, he hadn't been able to let go of this life. And he was pretty much all Nietzschean again. So, maybe he should get back to doing what he did best.

-o-o-o-


	18. Chapter 18

**Part 18**

The light filtering through the saloon windows was fading away to night time as Rhade emerged from behind the red curtains screening the entrance to the side room, pausing to whisper something to the pretty redhead with him before sending her away giggling with a pat on the bottom.

"Someone's feeling better," Beka commented wryly to those sitting at the bar with her. And to a certain extent that was true.

Rhade's return to Seefra had brought mixed reactions. There'd been fear and trepidation from some quarters, particularly those who'd shown the most active pleasure at his predicament, and delight from others - though that would probably mostly have been from the ladies who frequented the saloon. And given that his returning strength had had a similar effect on his libido, he'd put in a little time reassuring himself of his continued ability to attract bed mates.

But there'd been no news from across the planet, no indication of how Marta might be reacting to his miraculous recovery, and even these pleasant diversions couldn't drive the niggling concern from the back of his mind that she was just biding her time before renewing her lust for revenge.

He'd considered more than once going over there and confronting her, but whatever Beka might think, it wasn't the Nietzschean way to go blindly in search of retribution. And besides, he'd had enough on his hands ensuring more local nuisances such as Lunah and Bozim remembered their place in the larger order of things.

Strolling across to join his friends, he nodded his thanks to Harper for the drink that appeared in front of him, and pretended to ignore the knowing grins they were all bestowing on him. Conversation soon resumed, though, ebbing and flowing among them – the continuing hunt for a power source for Andromeda, Beka's recent cargo run, the latest gossip from town.

But sounds of a commotion outside drew their attention to the saloon doors a few moments before they slid open to reveal a small, close-packed group of glowering thick-set men. They barged their way past the single poor soul unfortunate enough to be on his way out of the bar, sending him crashing through a table as they marched purposefully into the room to come to a halt in the middle. There they parted to reveal a small figure hidden by their bulk, one that drew a murmured, "But… isn't that…?" from Doyle.

"It is indeed," agreed Dylan in bemusement, recognising the young girl who'd helped them escape from Marta's compound under the fancy clothes and the heavy make-up adorning the face looking serenely back at them.

"Whoever it is, they'd better not be looking for a fight," muttered Beka, automatically sizing up the odds as she slid to her feet to face the threat.

"No, no fight, Captain Valentine." The girl stepped out of her protective ring with a half smile. "At least, not here and not unless you really want one."

There was a sharp intake of breath from behind them, attracting sideways looks from the others. But it was the girl who spoke first. "Hello, Seamus," she smiled coquettishly, "nice to finally meet you in person. I did so enjoy our little chats."

"Verona?" The barman's incredulous expression reflected those of his companions, though obviously for different reasons.

"Yes, it's me," she agreed, her slightly disjointed gaze meandering across the others to rest appraisingly on Rhade. "Telemachus. You look much better than when I last saw you. I'm glad – a cage was no place for someone like you."

He stared back at her, frowning as he tried to work out where he knew her from. He couldn't recall ever having laid eyes on her before, yet something about her was vaguely familiar. Feverish images floated into his mind, pain-filled moments interspersed by the soothing touch of cool fingers and soft words of comfort. Not Trance, he realised, so could it have been this girl?

But her attention had swung away again, drawn by Dylan's, "Verona, is it?" He flashed a look at Harper that promised later discussion on how he might have come by that particular piece of information. "Well, if I might be so bold, what are you doing here? Last time we saw you your mother was doing her utmost to destroy us. Not that we weren't grateful for the help in getting Rhade away, you understand, but if you've come to finish the job for her…"

Smiling, she shook her head. "Oh no, nothing like that. You know, Mother was a terrible judge of character and she never did know when to stop. Always pushing, nagging, punishing… especially after you'd taken her new toy away…" As her hand dropped to lovingly caress the handle of the large knife they could now see hanging from her belt, her eyes became dreamily distant as if she was remembering something pleasant. Dylan had to suppress a shudder at what he could see lurking in their murky depths as she finished, "But I did learn a lot from her. And she won't be doing that any more, will she boys?" And from the way the men standing behind her blanched and answered promptly, "No, mistress," it was clear who was now in charge.

Mother? And more pieces clicked into place in Rhade's head, this time more aural than visual – the soft soothing words accompanying that gentle touch, interrupted by a harsh voice raised in anger, countered by protest. Then the thwack of flesh meeting flesh until all that was left were quiet sobs creeping away into the blackness. He knew that somehow whatever had happened then related to him, even if he felt totally adrift on the undercurrents of what was now going on around him.

It seemed, though, that Dylan understood only too clearly. "So, I guess congratulations are in order," he said dryly. "Just what every girl needs, I guess – a gang of her own to play with?"

Verona giggled at that, though the sound seemed wrong coming from the over-madeup face. "Yes, it's been fun. Not that everyone seemed to think it was a good idea. Unfortunately I had to make an example of a few of them. Oh, and that son of a Markasian she-whore, Balsen, too. Nasty slimy man – I used to hate it when he came to visit… But snip, snip!" She made a cutting motion in the air with two fingers, as another moment of inward-looking pleasure replaced her distasteful expression. "That taught him - now he can't bother anyone like that again. Right?" She glanced archly over her shoulder, eliciting an even faster response from her pale-faced guards.

"Oh boy…" came Harper's breathy voice, kind of reflecting the stunned way they were all feeling at these revelations.

"Well, that's good to know - I think," Dylan forced himself to go on. "But as I said, we're still a little curious as to why you're here."

"Of course you are," she smiled pleasantly. "Well, let's just say I thought it would be polite to explain the new situation in person, in case you were worried about… repercussions." She turned that odd look Rhade's way again. "Mother's not around to bother you any more, Telemachus. And while I can definitely see what made her want you, I have more than enough to entertain me right now." Her hand reached back to stroke the chest of the man standing nearest to her, though he didn't seem too pleased by the contact.

"And Captain Hunt, I have no desire to embroil myself in a pointless vendetta with you. So I think it would be most sensible to call it quits. But…"

"Why is there always a but…?" Beka grumbled, subsiding under Dylan's warning glance.

"But…" Verona went on, appearing to ignore her interruption, "just so we're perfectly clear. If you or your crew ever come into my territory uninvited again, I will destroy you. Is that understood?"

Her gaze swept them all, alighting last on Dylan who, after a brief pause so she didn't think he was acquiescing too easily, nodded his assent. "Providing you don't try muscling in around here, that is," he added evenly.

"That's acceptable," she agreed, again after a few moments consideration. "There's nothing here that would make a worthy adversary anyway." With a shrug that clearly conveyed her disinterest, she snapped her fingers to bring her entourage around her again as she turned away. "Nice doing business with you, Captain Hunt. Oh…" She stopped and pushed the two men who had closed in behind her apart so she could peer back between them, her eyes seeking and finding Harper. "Seamus, I'm happy to make an exception for you – you're always welcome, if you fancy a bit of trade or… or anything else, really." And licking her red-painted lips in a way that seemed more comical than the alluring she obviously intended it to be, she was gone, leaving them all feeling a little soiled by the contact.

"Harper?" Doyle was the one who got the word out first as they all turned to pin the engineer with expressions ranging from curiously amused to downright concerned, and he shrank back behind the bar under their combined weight.

"Really, it's not what you think. I mean, I never laid eyes on her before in my life, honest to God, cross my heart and hope to… well, OK, let's not go that far, but I swear it's the truth!"

"She certainly seems to know you."

"To be fair, she seemed to know all of us," Beka chipped in, "whether she'd met us or not," earning a look of heartfelt gratitude from Harper. It was soon replaced by a scowl, though as she went on with a grin, "But she did seem particularly attached to you, for reasons that I'm sure you're going to explain, right?"

It took only a few half-hearted protests of innocence, and attempts to change the subject, for Harper to realise prevarication wasn't going to get him out of this one. So after a couple of false starts he was persuaded to sheepishly admit to stumbling across a lost-sounding girl on a radio sweep one late bored evening. She'd seemed needy, looking for someone to talk to, and – out of the goodness of his heart, of course - he'd been happy to oblige. Especially once he'd found out who she was.

Dylan looked horrified at that. "She was your inside source on Marta's inventory? But… she's a child!"

"Could have fooled me!" Harper snapped back. "Didn't we just hear the 'child' admit to matricide, not to mention a few other crimes that I really don't want to think too hard about? Anyway, how was I supposed to tell how old she was from her voice? She sure as hell didn't let on. Didn't even tell me who she was for weeks. But it was just talk, I promise you. Nothing else happened."

"All the same, you took advantage of a lonely abused girl looking for companionship! That's pretty low, Harper, even for you." Whatever they'd just seen, Dylan could still visualise the face of the frightened teenager who'd helped them, and hated the thought of the horrors that could have driven her to become what she was now.

"No! Well, maybe a little bit. But I never asked her about any of it – she volunteered it all… Most of it, anyway..." The disbelieving faces around him seemed to compel him to keep talking. "OK, OK, so I did prompt her a bit – but only on stuff there'd been rumours of, and nothing she wasn't happy to talk about!"

"No wonder you didn't want anyone to know who it was, or how you found out," murmured Doyle reprovingly.

Harper folded his arms defensively across his chest as he replied sulkily, "Hey, you'd all have done the same. It was a chance to get us out of here and you're not gonna make me feel bad for taking it."

"Oh, if you're not careful, she could well manage to do that without any help from us." Beka was clearly enjoying this. "That's quite a monster you've helped create there, Dr. Frankenstein, and she seems to have taken quite a shine to you!"

"You know, that could prove quite useful if we find ourselves in need of a spare part of two. With that open invitation, you'd be a shoe-in to get her to let us have them. And if you really put your back into it, probably at a discount." Dylan wasn't averse to a little fun at Harper's expense either, especially when he thought he deserved it. And the horrified look on the engineer's face had them all laughing, the tension of the past ten minutes seeping away.

Not for everyone, though. Rhade had been sitting passively by while all this went on, but inside his mind was whirling. This encounter with Verona seemed to have brought a whole raft of memories and feelings back out of the dark corners he'd been pushing them into, though he was struggling to work out what they might mean.

They seemed to be telling him that this girl had offered him comfort at his lowest point when there was no one else, incurring her mother's wrath for her trouble, and had played a part in freeing him from the woman's clutches. That she now appeared to have so quickly and easily become the very thing she'd stood up against felt too much of a dichotomy for him to deal with.

Maybe it shouldn't surprise him – after all, he knew from personal experience the detrimental effect this place could have on even the most principled of men. But for it to have damaged a youngster like this was something completely different.

Visions of his own young ones nudged their way into his head and he wondered briefly how they would have fared in this harsh environment, deprived of parental love - and the sense of right and wrong it should instil - as Verona had obviously been. But he pushed the thought ruthlessly away before he could start dwelling on it.

He'd hoped he'd got himself to a place where such reminders of the humiliation he'd been forced to endure, the depths of despair he'd been taken to, the fine line he'd walked between survival and submission, couldn't affect him so. But it was as if there could be no end to the fallout of this particular nightmare.

The only thing he could take comfort from was the knowledge that where they were his family were safe from any more harm - and could never know the man he'd become.

"You seem troubled," Trance's soft voice came from close beside him, making him jump. He hadn't even realised she was there, and for a moment he feared he was suffering a relapse. But a brief internal check of his senses reassured him all was still well.

He gave her a rueful smile of greeting. "Just trying to understand how something like that can have happened. She tried to help me, I'm sure of it. And went against Marta to do it. Yet all of a sudden she's the one dishing out the punishment."

Her reply was typically enigmatic. "It does appear too often that the fruit truly never falls far from the tree."

"Then perhaps it's a good thing I have no seed to falter in the shadow of my mistakes," he said darkly, lifting his glass to his lips again.

"You're too hard on yourself, Telemachus," she admonished gently. "Your children will be proud to call you Father, and to follow the example you set for them."

"Wha…?" The drink went down the wrong way and caught in his throat, making him cough and his eyes water. A small hand patted him helpfully on the back, but by the time he'd recovered sufficiently to question her Trance had drifted away and was deep in a conversation with Beka that he didn't want to interrupt with something as personal as this.

What could she have meant? His children were dead, he was quite sure of that, killed along with their mother, his first true love. And though he'd bedded many women since he'd arrived here, he was certain there'd been no offspring. For whatever reason, life here in the Seefra system didn't seem to lend itself to reproduction – perhaps because it was barely able to sustain the current population.

So what, then? Did Trance in truth see a future for them all outside in the real world? One where he might find love again, make a new beginning, start a new family? With her it was often hard to tell what she really meant by the things she sometimes said. But what if…?

And that thought – that hope – was definitely something worth surviving for.

END

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: So, there it is... hope you enjoyed! I just wanted to thank my two regular reviewers for their kind comments and valued feedback, as well as the rest of you who've stuck with this to the end - it's very much appreciated.

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